Savage Love: Sparrow and Swann
by DorianGray91
Summary: FINAL CHAPTER! We all want to know what would happen if Will never loved Elizabeth. We already know that Jack is determined never to fall in love, and that Lizzie is too good for him... but fatal attraction is so hard to fight. The alternate events of the Curse of the Black Pearl, thrills and dangers galore - while tentative, unconventional and brutal romance awakens.
1. Chapter 1

So, this story revolves around one small change - Will Turner just wasn't that into Elizabeth, but the events that kicked off The Curse of the Black Pearl still occurred.

Elizabeth had no unconscious ambivalent love for Will to distract her from being mildly swept off her feet by the dashing Sparrow.

And Sparrow had nothing standing in his way to prevent him from winning a real classy lady's heart... nothing, that is, except for himself.

Set after Jack has saved Elizabeth from drowning, and consequently been arrested, thanks to the combined force of our alternate, just-doing-his-civic-duty Will Turner, and the valiant John Brown.

* * *

So, about this Playlist business. I basically have some fantastic soundtracks in mind for some parts of the action. I like extra atmosphere.

For example, right now, whether on Spotify, Youtube, wherever - you are going to prepare these particular songs:

1. 'My Mind Rebels Against Stagnation' from Sherlock Holmes.  
2. 'Progeny' from Gladiator.

And when I indicate in bold that you should play that particular song... Well. Play it.

Enjoy!

* * *

**1**

_Oh, the ocean waves do roll  
And the stormy winds do blow  
We old sailors are skipping at the top  
While the landlubbers lie down below, below  
Oh, the landlubbers lie down below. _

* * *

The sun was just beginning its descent, and the imbeciles were still whistling at the dog.  
Did they do this _all _day long?

Jack, on the other hand, hadn't moved yet.

Nor did he intend to.  
Not until food arrived.

_If _it arrived. He hoped Port Royal would at least have a catering service.

He still had his hat, though, and that was one thing.  
He had tilted it down at a rakish angle, so that one of his eyes was hidden in shadow, and he looked aloof and brooding.

If he was going to be lumped with these amateurs, these grimy bilge-rat kind no good for anything but swabbing boards... well. He was going to do it with dignity.

He was, above all things, very bored.

The sound of the door at the top of the stairs squeaking open made him look up with interest.  
Then he went back to his original position quickly - whoever it was, he wished to make an impression.  
Impressions were important things, when one was (as yet) unknown in said part of town.

Bloody blithering idiots. Did they all live under rocks or something?

"Miss." a guard's voice rapped out respectively.  
His thoughts were interrupted by the rustle of an expensive gown on the rough-hewn steps.

He stayed very still, trying his hardest not to look, though he already had an inkling of whom it might be. If he looked, he would ruin the brooding atmosphere he had worked so hard to maintain. And especially in front of this one -

"Captain Sparrow." the piercing, demanding voice echoed from just ahead of him, as her dress now rustled against the small bench and she took a seat.  
"Afternoon, Miss Swann!" one of the devils in the cage next to him piped up.  
"Good afternoon."  
"Blimey, but it's been a long time since I seen you last! Yer must 'ave grown about a mile!"  
"Captain Sparrow." she said again, ignoring the blaggard.

Jack finally deigned to glance up at her, narrowing his eyes in what he hoped was an infuriating but simultaneously charming stare.  
He saw her noticing the darkness of his irises, and the way the black kohl pencil around his eyelids made them stand out strikingly.  
He held back a smug grin.

"An' what brings you to me, young 'Lizabeth, Miss Swann?" he corrected himself before she could protest.  
He loved getting there first. The indignant set of her jaw made him more self-satisfied than ever.

"There's no need to be like that." she retorted, "I'm not here to gloat."  
"Can I jus'say, Miss Swann, you're looking mighty pretty, an' what a nice dress -"  
"Shut it!" Jack snapped at the slimy lugger, who crawled back into submission, "Don't address the lady with yer filthy tongue."  
"Well, I wouldn't quite say that." she said tentatively, but glanced more respectfully at him nonetheless.

"He recognise you 'cause you been visiting before?" Jack smirked.  
She shifted uncomfortably under his knowing look.  
"Why?" he furthered, enjoying himself.

Her eyes snapped up to meet his with a steely gaze.  
"If you must know, Captain Sparrow, it's because the Governor's household becomes tiresome, and because Port Royal is rich in servants but poor in choice of company."

Blow the man down. The girl gave no quarter.

"Can't you call on your Commadore fella?" he bantered back, "He should fancy another stroll atop the battlements, I'll bet ye."  
"Hardly." she huffed, "He bores me rotten. I'd rather take another fall."  
"I know you would, luv, s'long as I was there to catch ye again."  
She waved away his arrogant comment, but he could see a pleasing blush in her fine high cheeks, and she almost cracked a smile.

She had called him Captain three times now.  
Either she knew how to sweeten him up as much as he knew how to sweeten her, or she was a right decent wench if ever he saw one.  
Unless she was mocking him.

"So's you come down here to 'ave tea and fine delectables with us noble gents, when you gets bored of the high life, eh? That it?" he snorted derisively - not one to be taken in by flattery, not he.  
"Well... not precisely."  
"Well then. What happens?"  
"I come to hear the stories."  
"Rather you _used_ to come, Miss, if you please. We ain't seen you round these parts for nigh on four years, ain't that right, Tucky?" the knave shouted out once more.  
"Yeah, s'right!" seconded another.

Jack kicked the cage bars between them.  
He looked up at Miss from beneath his rakishly angled hat, and smirked a gold-spangled smirk.

"So, it's _my_ specific company you're a-seeking, is it?"  
She looked slightly taken aback, went to say something, stopped herself, then -

"Well, I wanted to see how you were doing."

He laughed aloud from his belly, genuinely amused at her childish, concerned curiosity.  
"And to hear a story, if you've got any new ones. They ran out four years ago which is why I stopped coming." she remarked, half to the bilge rats.  
"Aye, I has a story or two for the lady."  
Jack grinned, partly because he had found someone who would listen to his arrogance, and partly because he knew she was scamming.

"Go on then." she pushed.  
A few seconds of silence.

"Once... upon a squiffy bloody time, there was a Captain of a ship, whose crew had betrayed him, though he was a _very good Captain_." he recited with calm bitterness, "And this Captain happened upon a _port_, while he was making his way across the sea, to find his lost love -"  
"Who was she?"  
"What? No, no - the _ship_. He was looking for his _ship_." he muttered angrily, "Keep up, luv. So this Captain, he comes ashore, and he is 'aving this fine old chinwag with some stiff nautical gentlemen who don't want him to take one of their boats - when he happens to see a yellow dress falling through the sky, toward the water."

Elizabeth saw where this was going, and frowned with disappointment and cynicism.  
"- and _then_ he rescued her, like the bloody fool he is. And now here he's washed up, measured for his chains, and likely a noose fairly soon." he finished, glaring back with equal disdain.

Elizabeth sat very still looking him square in the eye for a moment.  
"Is it true your crew abandoned you?" she asked quietly.

He scowled, wishing he'd said nothing of it.  
"Aye."  
"What did they do with you?"  
"Marooned me. On a godforsaken spit of land, with nought but ocean for company."  
"What did you do?"

He couldn't resist. He leaned in naturally, preparing to make an atmosphere.  
"I went mad for a while." he half-joked, "Then... Oh, but this story's too good to waste on yourself."  
"Tis not." she retorted like a bad tempered girl, "Tell me."  
"I escaped."  
"How?"  
"Sea turtles."

She looked at him incredulously.  
"Don't ask me how I managed it. I was part addled, at the time."  
"I don't believe you."  
"You don't 'ave to. Good story though."  
"Yes. Could do with a little elaboration." she raised an eyebrow, humoured.

"So could your's." he came back, with a cheeky curl of his lips.  
"What?"

"Where did you get that medallion?" he murmured intensely, narrowing his eyes at her again.  
She crossed her hands in her lap and looked down.

"Come come, luv, don't be shy. Own up. Theft is a trifle, jus' take a look at us."  
"Yes, well I'm not you. And I didn't steal it, I kept it safe."  
"Does the lucky fella you're keeping it safe for know this?"  
"... No." she admitted uncomfortably, "We were very young. I don't think he remembers."

"Who is he?" he pressed.  
"Just a boy we found in a shipwreck. Alone. We took him in and made him the blacksmith's apprentice." it was her turn to smirk, "I believe he was the one who helped to capture you."  
"What, that whelp?"  
"I hear he gave you a bit of trouble with his sword collection. I wish I'd been there to see. My blacksmith friend, turned pirate-catcher!"

Jack squinted at her, and decided to brush lightly over his embarrassment.

"Uh-huh. And this boy who happened to be alone in a shipwreck, what was he doing?"  
"He said something about his father, but other than that... he doesn't like to talk about it."  
"What's his name, this blacksmith friend?" he said the last word with a twinge of sarcasm.  
She heard it, and beat him down with that powerful flash of her mahogany-hued eyes.

She was a lass, this one. She had a right kick to her.

"Will Turner. What's it to you?"

**'My Mind Rebels Against Stagnation'. Play it!**

Explosions lit up in front of his waking eyes.  
Jack tried not to look excited, but his whole body tingled with the tension of sudden possibilities.  
The _Pearl_.  
As plans rocketed around in his brain he felt he could almost grasp the spokes of her wheel, sense the smooth, old wood and the power behind its spin, the weight of the ship in his hands. He itched to hold his compass.

So close, so suddenly.

"Is it important?" Elizabeth asked him anxiously.  
He looked up innocently. He had forgotten her for a moment there.  
"No. Not at all." he grimaced in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.  
"And the medallion?"  
A pause.

"It's a trinket, belonging to a - great pirate. But he's long dead."  
"I won't get in trouble if I get found out, will I?"  
"With who, us pirates or the whelp?"  
"You, of course. I wouldn't tell William."  
Another pause.

"Yer safe, luv, be reassured o'that." he lied smoothly, "Why don't you give it to me though, jus' to be on the safe side?"  
"Never! It belongs to William, if he ever asked about it or found out you had it -"  
"If it belongs to William why don't you give it back to bloody William then?" he huffed exasperatedly, "No? Then same difference, you or me having it, ain't it?"  
"Absolutely not. I'm not about to be tricked - if it wasn't special you wouldn't want it."

He laughed again, taken aback by her intelligence.

She was doing that thing wenches did when they wanted to look but not to get caught looking.  
Her sharp halos kept flickering from him to her lap, him to the scoundrels in the next cell, him to the dog in the doorway they were still gesturing at hopefully.  
Jack appreciated pretty girls who looked at him that way.  
Especially classy, well-dressed ones. It almost made up for the day he was having.  
Almost.

"You didn't come to hear stories." he claimed smugly.  
"I've heard your story." she retorted quickly, trying not to go red.

**'Progeny'.**

He leaned towards her again, feeling the tension growing between them as he dug further and further into her secrets, and betrayed her real intentions aloud to the room.

"Have you ever thought about it? The wide, open sea?" he half-whispered.  
The seadogs beside him unconsciously gathered about a little, looking at him with the wonder of children about to hear a ripping good swashbuckler.

She didn't answer, but the corners of her soft mouth turned upwards.

"Ever tasted adventure? Felt the wind at your back, the spray on your face?" he urged, sensing her soul being drawn in irresistably. He had caught a mighty wild creature at that. What luck. "Ever brandished a sword? Climbed the rigging and sang from the nest, with nought but a bottle in yer hand? Ever sailed to impossible places what nobody else could find? Beyond the edges of a map?"

Her breath caught slightly in her throat, but she remained silent. Wild, but wary.  
"You're here because I excite you." his thrilling voice intoned, "You're here because you're bored. An' this Commadore, I'm guessing - he's not for you, luv. Savvy?"  
"You are too bold, Captain."  
"You know it, 'Lizabeth, darling. You know if I had the ship and the crew and I'd saved your bonny self in a less - physical manner - you'd have to think very very hard about hanging around this pristine place for much longer."

**Music Stops.**

"Excuse me. I think that's quite enough." she snapped stiffly. He could see the guard going up in her eyes, like shutters in windows. "I think I have enough sense - and sense of propriety - to know better than to listen to your sly talk. I won't have it."  
"I saved your life, that's got to count for something in your regard."  
"You threatened me with a pistol."  
"Needs must. Nothing personal."

"Miss." the fella from upstairs said.

"It _is_ getting late." she sighed, and stood up from the bench, dusting her dress off.

Clasping her hands together, she smiled with more falsity than authenticity, but her genuine connection to Jack managed to peek through her strict guard.  
Her wide, dark orbs regarded him with more than shallow amusement.  
"I must be going."

"Wait, wait!" he said, desperation making him louder than intended.  
He reached through the bars and caught the very edge of her sleeve between his fingers as she moved to go.  
He couldn't let this slip, not now he was in the know, not now the _Pearl _was so bloody close -

"Don't leave me here to die." he urged in a low, earnest murmur.

A wave of troubled ambivalence crossed her expression. Her lips poised themselves, slightly parted.

"Please." he added, trying to catch her eye, to rekindle the understanding they had formed in that short space of time, "Don't let an old adventurer perish on your watch, luv, eh? 'Ave an heart."

She looked guiltily at the steps leading upwards to her freedom, then at his tanned arm outstretched to her, and the branded 'P' standing out white on his skin.

She leant in towards the cage, and put her mouth to his ear.

"His name is Jim."

"_What_?" he snorted as she turned and fled from him, "What is that?_ That _is definitively and entirely not helpful! Come back!"

But she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you to my reviewers so far! You wonderful people.

So, as you can tell there is only mildly hinted Jack/Elizabeth so far, so you're probably not captivated with enjoyment just yet. After all, Jack and Liz are what you came for.

But I believe in proper story telling, which means juicy bits will start cropping up more and more often, until we get to the really good part. And then we can swoon over Jack's torn intentions and Elizabeth's romantic anxiety and the seductive moments below deck and the (very different) experience deserted on Jack's island.

So kick back, enjoy the narrative build-up, and feel the suspense as we wait for the lurve to blossom!

(Oh, and pretty please keep reviewing! You people who read and don't review, I can sense you there! Looting my treasure chest of fiction and leaving me without so much as a gem, with your piratey eyes... Jokes. But please do write if you like it! xx)

* * *

Songs today: 'Barbarian Horde' from Gladiator. 'Jack Sparrow' from Dead Man's Chest. 'Will and Elizabeth' from Curse of the Black Pearl.

**2  
**

_So list while I sing ter yer about me darlin' Nancy  
She's copper-bottomed, clipper-built, she's just me style an' fancy  
Ye may talk about yer Yankee gals an' round-the-corner-Sallies  
But they couldn't make the grade, me boys, with the gals from down our alley._

* * *

**'Barbarian Horde'.**

Elizabeth dropped the medallion a few inches on its chain, catching it again only as the pirates made a sudden move towards her, and Captain Barbossa uttered an undeniable _No!_

He recovered himself very quickly, however, and sauntered slowly over, feigning a nonchalant chuckle.  
"You have a name, Missy?"

Oh, God.  
_Never reveal your real name_. Pirates will ransom and threaten and - murder. Her father couldn't be put in peril because of her.

"Elizabeth..." she began.

The first name that sprang to mind was Sparrow. Her stomach twinged at the name - ridiculous under the much more pressing circumstances.  
But no, no, too dangerous. From what Jack had said it sounded as though he wasn't well liked in some places. And pirate associates were dodgy things anyway.

Who knew if this bunch of rabid thugs had some kind of vengeful intentions towards him, and therefore towards all affiliated with him?  
They may well kill her on the spot for mentioning one wrong name.

A name, any non-pirate name... a friend's name. Will would know what to do if they threatened him. He'd handled Jack, at least.

"... Turner. I'm a maid in the Governor's household." she improvised, even throwing in a slight curtsey.  
_Idiot_, she thought.

"Miss Turner?" Barbossa emphasised, glancing back at his crew with a sneer on his unsightly face.  
"Bootstrap." someone whispered in an ominous voice.  
She hoped to God she hadn't said anything she shouldn't have.

Jack's words wandered into her mind.  
_And this boy who happened to be alone in a shipwreck, what was he doing?_

To this day, she still didn't know who Will really was - where he came from.  
Or who else knew things about him that she didn't.

Five minutes later, she was being dragged to spare quarters and told to wait until somebody came for her, medallion-less, utterly terrified, utterly alone, utterly hopeless.  
They were setting sail. They were sailing away, and she wasn't returning home.  
Not going home.  
Her father. Her _life_... Taken so - abruptly.

_Why _did they want her on board? Wasn't it bad luck to sail with a woman?  
Wouldn't they rather just have rid of her?  
It was surely only a matter of time before she was killed or - or worse.

If Jack had taken her hint and escaped from the cell, he had better be coming after her as soon as he realised she'd been kidnapped.  
He had to come after her. He was her only hope.  
_What was she saying?_  
She was talking about a bloodthirsty pirate with _hope _of compassion and heroic sacrifice.

He had been interested in Will's name too. She had seen it dancing alight in his eyes.

Prey to ruthless, bloody selfish pirates everywhere she turned today.  
Where would she be by tomorrow?

_Welcome aboard the Black Pearl , Miss Turner._

**Music Stops.**

* * *

My_ sympathies, friend, you've no manner of luck at all._

Bloody filthy no-good swabbing bilge-rat lugger bastard.

Sun was up. Still hadn't found a way out.  
_Pearl _was gone.  
Bloody awful.

Still no sign of the wench, and thus no sign of the medallion.  
Or the whelp.

Jack was kneeling in front of the barred cell door, trying to decide whether to attempt to pick the lock with the bone the seadogs had left him.

What was she thinking, giving him bloody advice that didn't make sense?  
_Jim?_

"Who is this bloody Jim?" he muttered to himself, getting all the angrier for saying it aloud.  
"Jim, Jim, _Jim_! JIM! Well, where the blazes are you, you blaggard? _Who do you think you are_?"

**'Jack Sparrow', DMC.**

A small whine answered him.  
He looked wildly about for the source of the noise - and saw, in the doorway, that bloody dog, still clutching the keys in its mouth.

Penny in the air...  
The dog stared at him expectantly. Neither of them moved for a moment.  
... And the penny dropped.

"Jim?" he asked incredulously.  
The dog yawned, iron ring dangling from its lower teeth, then trotted over to the cell as calm as you please. It dropped the keys into Jack's tentative open palm. Licked his fingers as an afterthought. And bounded off again.

"... JIM!" Jack exploded with delight, doing a small and embarrassing jig, "You're a diamond, mate!"  
When he got hold of Swann. When he - got ahold - of Swann.  
He was going to plant the biggest, strongest ruddy kiss on that sweet bonny mouth... Ohh ho!

**Music Stops.**

"Snap out of it." he told himself indignantly, shoving the first key into the lock.

Five minutes later, he was running through the town towards the smithy.  
_Find the whelp, find the medallion, find the Pearl.  
_Elizabeth's steely gaze flashed into his mind, and he winced. The medallion might prove itself the trickiest.  
_Maybe have to bring the wench as well._

He didn't have to look far - the lad's body was spread eagled in the middle of the dusty road right in front of him.

Will's brain was fuzzy.  
When he opened his eyes, the image in front of him didn't match up to his expectations.

First of all, it was light. It had been very dark when he was smirking at the pirate he had just outwitted.

Second, there was a man staring down at him with a vaguely amused expression on his face.  
At least, it looked like an amused expression. Hard to tell, as the man's face was upside down.

Will flicked away a dreadlock that was hanging into his eye.  
"You?" he choked.  
"What?"  
"You're supposed to be in a cell. Why are you here?"  
"Don't ask stupid questions. You're what I need. Now come with me, savvy?"  
"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Will retorted with feeling.

He felt the cold weight of a shotgun's muzzle against his shoulder.  
"_You_ are coming with _me_ to the Gov'nors house, or I blows yer weasley black guts out."  
"I am _not _helping you to plunder that house."  
"I don't want to plunder, I'm just after this one thing - your _friend_ 'Lizabeth has it."

"Elizabeth was taken by the pirates, which is a damned sight more important than whatever you're after."  
Jack's face contorted in mental anguish, as the realisation that he was now one piece short sunk in.  
"That's not more important, it's the same thing!" he cried in distress.

He looked about him helplessly.  
So Barbossa had the medallion. Jack had the boy.  
Tougher trade, compared to what he thought he'd end up with.  
He sighed with vehemence.

"Right. Well. That's that then. We follow the ship. You, with me."  
"Why me?" Will protested, utterly lost to what was going on.

Jack started to tell him the truth, stopped, and thought about which lie he was going to tell for a good moment. It had to be a convincing lie.  
_I plan to trade you to Barbossa in exchange for 'aving my ship back _wasn't going to get him very far.  
The best lies, he considered briefly, were however often the ones closest to the truth.

"I need a pirate to help me. No other bloody pirates in Port Royal, is there."  
"I'm not a pirate!"  
This wasn't going to be as easy as he'd planned out.

Explanations later. Threat of imminent death would do for now.  
"Argh! I don't 'ave to explain meself to you. Just move!" Jack jabbed him with the gun and hauled him to his feet, "An' move quick, I don't 'ave all flamin' day."

They frog-marched as swiftly and surreptitiously as possible towards the docks, Jack pressing the gun between their bodies to hide it.  
Finding close cover, they peeked out at the tall ships anchored lazily on the water.

"We're going to steal the ship? That ship?" Will asked incredulously, motioning towards the _Dauntless_.  
"Commandeer. We're going to commandeer _that_ ship." Jack pointed instead at the _Interceptor_, "Nautical term."

Will glared at him in silence for a moment.  
"You said you needed a pirate -"  
"Not now! Not the bloody time."  
"But how could I be a pirate? What do you know about me that I don't?"  
"If you stick around long enough to set sail wi'me, I may well tell you everything you want to know." Jack suggested.  
Will set his jaw and said nothing.

"Besides," Jack furthered, eager to seal a deal that didn't involve having to hold a pistol at his only shipmate and steer with one hand, "I'm sure you are anyway under moral obligations at said present time to return a favour."  
"Favour?" Will snorted, "I don't owe _you_ any _favours_."  
"I'm not talking about meself, mate."

The boy looked at him with wary eyes.  
"_Miss Swann_." Jack rolled his eyes, "Should think her family would appreciate the... reciprocated rescue of a certain - not shipwrecked - young vulnerable individual out at sea. As it were."

Will almost managed a comical double take as he finally understood.  
"How did you know about that?"  
"She told me."  
"_When _did you get the time to stop and chat with the Governor's daughter?"  
"On one of her rather admirably risky visits to the poor jailed pirates of Port Royal." Jack grinned half to himself, "She's a fiesty lass, that one. Give her a sword and a nice hat, she'd make a good addition."

"Don't talk about Miss Swann that way. It's disrespectful." Will snapped.  
"Let me guess." Jack came back just as quick, "She made you play Jolly Roger in your younger, nipperish days."  
He took the silence as some form of confirmation.

"You know she used to sneak up to the cells and listen to their stories." he continued, "Aye, she's got grit. She'll do alright aboard the _Pearl _for now. Perhaps have done with piracy by the time she's headed home."  
"How do you know it was called the _Pearl_?"  
"I said don't ask stupid questions."

"... Can you promise she _will_ come home?" Will asked.  
"Who knows, mate. But it helps to think good. The rest sometimes follows of its own accord."

Will considered his options.  
Then he realised he didn't have any. He couldn't risk running away from a pirate's precisely aimed pistol. He had a fool's hope of getting out alive.  
And Jack wasn't the sort to give up so easily even if Will did escape.

The only consolation to be had was the thought of discovering his father's identity, and possibly being reunited with him.  
Though if Jack knew him, he hoped it wasn't too personally.

Getting Miss Swann out alive should be his priority now. If he couldn't save himself from pirates, at least he should try and return her favour, like Jack said.  
Perhaps the Governor and the Commodore would reward him, on the wild, improbable chance that they returned safely.

They set out to commandeer the speediest ship in the Caribbean.  
Or so Will thought.

* * *

**'Will and Elizabeth'.**

Commodore Norrington scowled through his telescope at the escaping ship.  
"What on earth is Turner doing with that pirate?"

Gillete was waving frantically at them from the small emergency boat, shouting.

"That is without doubt the worst pirate I have ever seen." Norrington sniped disapprovingly.  
He swiftly boarded the _Interceptor_, caught up to the offendors within minutes, and with the rest of his crew, swung across to the _Dauntless_ to capture them.  
"Search every cabin, every hold, down to the bilges." he snapped.

Two figures just on the edge of his sightline swung back across to the better ship.  
He thought it was soldiers going back for a moment, but then -  
"Sailors, back to the _Interceptor_! Now!"

Too late. Turner was voluntarily cutting the ropes, Sparrow brandishing a shotgun in the blacksmith's general direction as he deftly steered the ship out into faster waters.

"Thank you, Commodore, for getting us ready to make way! We'd have had a hard time of it by ourselves!" he nodded gleefully in Norrington's direction.

Norrington quickly ordered for the ship to be manouvered and the long nines to be put to good use.  
Groves obeyed, but raised his eyebrows.

"We open fire on our own ship, sir?"  
"I'd rather see her at the bottom of the ocean than in the hands of a pirate." he replied firmly.

Somebody cried out in dismay.  
"Commodore, he's disabled the rudder chain, sir!"

Norrington took in a very deep breath.  
Groves stood useless, gazing out at the escaping vessel as it mowed down Gillete's boat and the men swam for safety.  
"That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen."

Another deep breath.  
It was just going to be one of those days.

"So it would seem."


	3. Chapter 3

I'm sure nobody wants me to trawl through all of the movie's story that's left unchanged by my small alteration... For example, our lads still going to Tortuga and find themselves a crew.

My way around it is to write tiny sections of these events in, so we know where we are with the plot line.

These bits also happen to be my favourite bits, so we know that they will contribute to our enjoyment, as well as being a useful guide!

Also, the one thing I really want is for fiction to come with appropriate music.

* * *

Playlist: 'Maximus' from Gladiator.

* * *

**3**

_I went to seek a road to fortune,  
Thought I'd find a road to fortune  
I joined a ship a' went a-sailin'  
Bound away to Iceland cold  
Found much ice but not much gold.  
_

* * *

"When I was a lad living in England, my mother raised me by herself. After she died, I came out here, looking for my father." Will told him, a wary gleam in his eyes as he studied Jack, sharpening his sword.

"Is that so." Jack threw back at him, equally wary of giving too much away in one go.

"You told me I was a pirate. Why?"

The boy was ruddy perseverant, he'd hand that to him, at least.  
Annoying little scallywag.  
Why couldn't he just be brainless, like his father?

"'Lizabeth. She told me your name."  
"And what does my name have to do with it?"  
Jack didn't have to answer. After all, Will _wasn't_ as stupid as his father.

"You're saying I'm a descendant." the whelp's voice hardened, "Of whom?"  
"_Whom _d'you bloody think, Grace O'Malley? Captain ruddy Kidd? I knew 'cos of your name, son, you already know what you didn't want to believe."

Will stayed dangerously silent. Jack heaved a sigh, adjusting course slightly.  
"I was probably one the few who knew him as William Turner. Everyone else just called him Bootstrap or Bootstrap Bill. Good man. Good pirate." he squinted at the boy with a grimace of regret, "I swear you look just like him."

Jack didn't even flinch at the scrape of unsheathed metal, as he turned back to the wheel.  
"My father was _not_ a pirate."  
"Put it away, son." he warned gently.

After the bloody pointless kerfuffle was over and done with, Will had stopped dangling off the bowsprit and finally learned some sense, and Jack had (perhaps unwisely) given him back the sword, they set their heading eagerly for blessed Tortuga.  
The thought of cheap rum made Jack's stomach tingle with pleasure.

"So." Will ventured after a good hour of silent sailing, except for the orders Jack barked, "I never had a chance to ask. Why are you so eager to follow the _Pearl_? What's in it for you?"  
Jack laughed, a raucous, grating laugh that sounded hollow.  
"That's two in two days what have asked me for me life story." he said sarcastically.  
"Miss Swann asked you about yourself too? On her - visit?"  
"Aye. I told you, she sneaks - snuck - down to the cells to hear the stories."

A genuine smile tugged at the corners of Jack's mouth, as he remembered her indignance when he'd challenged her intentions - knowing there was something more behind those pursed, pretensive lips, something still alive and kicking in the glimmer of her wicked gaze.  
He could see all that poofed, curled, secured tawny hair flying free in wavelets, on the high breeze of the sea. He could see the steel in her eyes matching the steel of her sword, as she handled it in real battle for the first time.

If only she weren't such a blooming ponce. He could teach her to be something marvellous.

"Jack? The _Pearl_. Why are you following it?"  
"Well, it's my flamin' ship, ain't it."  
"_What? _You own that - that monster?"  
"Eh. Don't be talking about my magnificent vessel in that ha-rather impolite tone of your's." Jack protested, frowning, "She's my ship. Someone stole her from me, tha's'all. And now I'm finally en route to getting her back."

He would have loved to mention the sheer amount of time it had been since he'd last been the real captain, but didn't dare - in case the whelp caught on that Jack now had something to barter with that he hadn't had before.

"What about Miss Swann?" Will enquired quietly.  
"Eh?"  
"Well, do you intend to rescue her? Even if it doesn't fit in with your plans?"  
"Are you _asking_ me if I am a noble and morally upright h'individual?" Jack asked, with a hint of amusement in his voice.  
"I'm asking, is she important enough to you that she'll return home safely?"  
"Gosh, mate. Anyone would think you was in love with the wench, the way you go on."  
"It's nothing like that." he came back, "But I owe her and her father a good deal of favours. Aside from the fact that I _am_ a noble and morally upright individual."

Jack turned to grin widely at him. Now the whelp was getting it.  
"Hows about I concentrate on all those things that need doing for what's right by me, and _you _can concentrate on covering everyone else's backs. Including mine. And the wench's, if you so choose."  
"Why would I want to cover your dirty hide?"  
"Because. I'm charming."

They smirked at one another for a moment.  
Jack felt from the bottom of his - admittedly very shallow - heart, that they were finally beginning to bond.

"Jack. I know it's not probable, but - I want to know. Is there any chance of finding my father out here? Is he?..." Will trailed off, not wanting to ask the next part.  
Jack looked down at his feet, and chewed his lip for a second.  
The last he had heard of Bootstrap, he was at the bottom of the ocean. Undead, dead, he didn't know what.  
Apparently there was a curse. He'd seen proof of it last night.

Who knew anything, when it came to pirates and those strange wonders of the free ocean.  
But, in all likeliness, Bootstrap was not returning from any form of death or undeath soon.

"Haven't heard from him in years." he admitted, more truthfully than he cared to let on, "Who knows, mate. If you look hard enough maybe you'll come across him. If you don't look hard enough... maybe Fate will do it for you."  
"You believe in fate?"

Jack sighed. What would it take to shut this lad up?

"I_ told _you, don't ask me stupid ruddy questions!"

* * *

Elizabeth cowered in the mess, cowered in the red velvet gown she'd almost felt good in, before - before all this.

Skeleton pirates. Undead - bloody - pirates.

She'd thought she was terrified as they'd set sail from Port Royal. When she suspected Barbossa had poisoned her. When she'd had to stab him with her dining knife.

Now she was beyond terror.  
She suspected it was the force of the shock that made her emotionally unresponsive to all thoughts and issues running through her mind.

There was nothing to be done. No way out, no fair killing, no fair fight.

And they still hadn't raped or murdered her, despite the scare they had given her.  
They must need her for something. It was the only explanation.

**'Maximus'.**

_Jack Sparrow. Captain Jack Sparrow, if you aren't on your way to get me with the whole Royal Navy and my father at your back, you'll have a lot to answer for.  
I'll kill you myself, if I ever get away from here alive._

_God, I hope you know these brutes well enough to know where they're headed.  
I don't. I don't even know where I am._

She put her head in her hands and finally started to weep.  
It almost annoyed her that she had overcome her numbness the moment she had thought of him.  
Like he was some trigger for her deeper-rooted emotions, or some other idiot thing.  
In fact, it was probably the incredibly tiny hope of rescue that had set her off.

Of course that was it.  
"Snap out of it." she told herself indignantly, and brushed away the tears.

She was going to have to be strong. And patient.

_Have you ever thought about it? The wide, open sea?_

She snorted derisively to herself. Well, here she was. And it was awful.

_Ever sailed to impossible places what nobody else could find? Beyond the edges of a map?_

Oh, Jack.

He had made it sound so enchanting. The truth was, off the edges of the map was a black, cold world with monsters at every turn.

Beyond the edges of the map, ghost stories lurked, and whispered.


	4. Chapter 4

Playlist: 'Catatonic' from Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

**4**

_There was a ship, she sailed to Spain  
There was a ship came home again  
What d'ye think was in her hold?  
There was diamonds, there was gold  
Many a sailorman gets drowned  
Many a sailorman gets drowned._

* * *

"Now, what's the nature of this venture of yourn?" Gibbs growled eagerly.

It was good to see Gibbs again. He was one of the only decent sort Jack had ever known.

Descended from decentness, as it were. A nice way of saying he'd been in the good way of things, but ended up a drunkard at the bottom of the filthiest town in all the Caribbean.  
It would be good for him to get away. On a real adventure. With a real promise of the _Pearl_, a good living, and less pigs.

**'Catatonic'.**

"I'm going after the Black Pearl." Jack stated. Gibbs almost choked on his drink - Jack frowned at him for being so melodramatic. "I know where it's going to be, and I'm going to take it."  
He said it with such assurance already.  
Good. It was useful to be positive.  
Things would end up his way somehow. He could feel it, now, more than he ever had. Like rising light on the edge of a gathering storm. Far, but certain.

Gibbs stared at him in mild horror.  
"Jack, it's a fool's errand. Why, you know better than me the tales of the Black Pearl!" he insisted.  
Down to earth Gibbs. Would he ever learn a sense of adventure? Jack warmed to him silently.  
"_That's _why I know what Barbossa is up to. All I need is a crew."  
"From what I hear tell of Captain Barbossa, he's not a man to suffer fools, nor strike a bargain with one."  
"Well, then I'd say it's a very good thing I'm not a fool then, eh?" Jack came back just as quick, eyes glinting as much as his golden smile.  
"Prove me wrong." Gibbs challenged, "What makes ye think Barbossa will give up his ship to you?"

Jack gave him a knowing, wily smirk.

"Let's just say I've got a bit to barter with."  
Gibbs grunted his misunderstanding.  
"I've been dealt a good hand."  
"Eh?"  
"It's going to be a simple matter of exchange and transaction."  
"Jack, just tell me what ye got."

Jack nodded very obviously towards Will.  
Will was looking, very amusingly, at a lass Jack had had the pleasure of _meeting _just a month ago.  
She was batting her big eyes at him and touching her hair in the most discracefully erotic manner.  
His stomach twitched a little as he realised he felt repulsion.  
She hadn't been that bad.  
But then - well, she wasn't the classiest wench, was she?

Gibbs didn't get it. Jack had to nod a good few times more before he did. Then his brow furrowed.  
"The kid?"  
Jack nodded, perhaps a little too exaggeratedly. He adored the feel of ale in his brain.  
"_That _is the child of Bootstrap Bill Turner. His only child. Savvy?"  
"_Is_ he, now?" Gibbs grinned like a hyena as the pieces finally fell into place for him. "Exchange, says you. I think I feel a change in the wind, says I. I'll find us a crew! There's bound to be some sailors on this rock _crazy_ as you!"

Jack's chest was tight with excitement.  
It was one thing to come up with a wonderfully wicked scheme and revel in his own cleverness. It was quite another thing to have a fellow vagabond, a partner in crime, to chuckle along with him.  
_This _was what he had been waiting for.  
He had his life back.

"One can only hope." he joked in reply to Gibbs' jibe. "Take what you can."  
He held aloft his mug in triumph.  
"Give nothing back!" Gibbs clunked tankards with him, and they drained their ale as a toast.

A toast to the good ol' life.

**Music Stops.**

* * *

"Mr. Cotton! Do you have the courage and fortitude to follow orders and stay true in the face of danger and almost certain death?"

Good line. He loved his little sprouts of genius.  
He wished everybody else would look a little more impressed with him too.  
Cotton was being very rude. Not a good start.  
"Mr. Cotton! Answer, man!"  
"Ah, he's a mute, sir." Gibbs put in helpfully.  
His round face was tense with excitement and anxiety - eager to please, and bloody useless as always.

_Great_. Jack thought, heart sinking, _Bloody flabbergobbing brilliant. Midgets and mutes now. Summed up this whole flamin' crew in a nutshell._

Will didn't seem to believe Jack's false heartiness about the situation either.  
And - a _woman_ on board. A woman he was in trouble with.  
... Was there such a thing as a woman he _wasn't_ in trouble with?

Well, yes. Just the one. But probably not for long.

The crew were just about finishing up with moving their meagre belongings on board. Jack hadn't allowed for a night's stop at the nearest inn.  
Time was precious. Barbossa was wily. He had the medallion, but he still didn't have the blood. He would start thinking about that soon, start to wonder about the son that Bootstrap had sent the missing piece off to, start to form plans, start to move around.  
He would only stay at the Isle de Muerta long enough to drop off the medallion in its rightful place and empty the _Pearl's_ loot.

Will climbed aboard last from the longboat, and came to stand beside Jack at the wheel.

Surprising he hadn't made better friends with the other members of the crew by now - most of them seemed to be thinking along Gibbs' lines of 'good-hearted piracy'. Maybe it was becoming a new trend. If so, it ought to be flogged out of them before they started breeding a race of moral scoundrels. The last thing the pirate kind needed, what with - that unpleasant business.

His hand twitched to the 'P' stamped on his arm for a moment.

"Lay aloft and loose all sail!" he snapped at the crew, who hurriedly threw their belongings into safe corners and jumped up the rigging obediently. "Sheet home lower topsails, hoist the topsails, you know how it works! Hopefully..."

Will rocked slightly on his heels, hands behind his back, looking innocently about at the rush, like the ship's dog or something. Jack glared at him.  
"Something holding you up, Turner?"  
Will had never seen Jack's real Captain face before. So he didn't pay all that much attention to it.

"Your crew might be a bit odd, but they're fine sailors." he commented eagerly.  
"All but one."  
"Hmm?"  
"Why are you standing here? Go, go on! Weigh the anchor with the rest of 'em."  
"But... what?"  
"Part of the crew! Hop to it, scurry!"  
"But -"  
"What? You thought you were my personal assistant? If I had a personal assistant they'd be blonde and female. Wearing a tight corset and not much else."

Will looked at him in mild exasperation and confusion, then stomped off to learn how to sail a ship properly. Jack noticed Gibbs surreptitiously taking him under his wing and chuckled.

Just a few hours later, and a right storm had blown up.  
Jack clutched his compass in one hand and steered with all his might with the other. His smile was set in grim, gleeful determination. He could feel victory pulling him closer, pulling him even through the high winds and higher waves. It wanted him to win.

He heard William shouting something about his compass to Gibbs, and the old pirate's joyful reply.

Then suddenly Gibbs was staggering over against the tilt of the ship, an awed expression on his white-bearded face.  
It took Jack a moment to realise that this wondering gaze was directed at him.

What must he look like, grinning, wide eyed, unwavering? A madman at worst, the very devil at best.

"What's in your head that's put you in such a fine mood, Captain?"

Jack's eyes flashed, and the surge of victory washed over him again, like the fine cold spray of the wild, tossing sea.  
"We're catching up."


	5. Chapter 5

Playlist: 'Sail' by Awolnation. (Sexy ass tune).

Warning: this chapter contains erotic images and suggestions about Jack *taking care of himself*. Nothing too explicit though. But gosh, is it juicy! Enjoy.

* * *

The storm had passed on, but it was still very early morning. Jack's eyes were red and heavy from his efforts, and many hours without sleep. Gibbs meandered over discreetly, away from the rest of the working crew.  
"Cap'n?" he muttered politely.  
"Mm?"  
"Cap'n, yer keep bein' about to drop off into slumber, sir."  
"What?" Jack asked as his eyes rolled closed and his head fell towards his chest for the tenth time. He snapped himself back to attention, "I dunno what you're on about."  
"Cap'n, perhaps I should take the helm for a few hours, aye?"

Yes. Perhaps he should. Jack thought back to the last time he'd had sleep - certainly not last night in Port Royal, and only briefly the night before when he'd discovered there was a small leak in his vessel.

"Quite right, Mr. Gibbs." he slurred, stuffing a fist in his mouth as he yawned widely.  
He just about made it to his quarters and through to his cabin, and dropped straight onto the four poster bed, sinking into plush velvet cushions. Proper posh English captain's stuff, was this.  
He barely noticed - he was snoring.

He awoke not knowing how much sleep he had had, still bleary and irritable.  
Gibbs hadn't called him back to the helm yet, judging by his decided absence.  
He should go back to sleep. He needed it.  
He rolled over into a more comfortable position, huffed, and drifted more gently this time into lighter slumber. Lighter slumber, in fact, that took him directly to the Sea of Dreams. A place he didn't have the chance to visit often.

* * *

**'Sail'.**

He stood at the mouth of the cave of Isle de Muerta. The last medallion was clutched in his left hand. His right was stained with rich, dripping blood. Will's.

He floated through the cave's passages like a blissful spirit.  
He didn't know why he was heading back into the caves. The _Pearl _was waiting for him outside.

And then he saw her.

She was standing in the shallow waters, in the midst of all that gold.  
She radiated more beauty than any of the precious objects around her.

She was clothed in the dress he had first rescued her in, but it was different - more flowing, more ethereal. It floated gently, slowly, in swathes around her, defying gravity for the sake of beauty, as though she was a ghost. Her golden hair was coming loose too, shimmering and washing and wafting about her like a mermaid's. A light gorgeous as the setting sun emanated from her, making the dust motes dance in its beams. Her face was - so pale, so soft-looking, the face of a goddess, a goddess of the sun, with her fierce golden attire and her sharp, dark halos glaring out from the blinding brightness of her visage.

She was everything, everything he had wanted her to be.

He wasted no time. Suddenly he was standing in front of her, bathed in her light, body electrified with erotic pleasure. She gazed at him silently with those black beams that cut through his soul.

He reached out to touch her, catching a strand of hair in his fingers before placing his palm on her neck. She shuddered at his touch, eyelids softly closing in ecstasy.

He ached to grasp her hair in knots between his fists and drag her mouth against his. He ached to own her. But something in his stomach told him, not yet. Not yet.  
She wasn't any ordinary creature. She wouldn't give herself up to him so quickly.

He traced his hand from her neck down towards her breast, pushed tightly upwards inside her corset. He felt the delicious full roundness of it, chased the semi-circle round, and longingly caressed the rim of her clothing, wishing to tear it back, to reveal her.

The long floating folds of her dress were hovering tentatively about him. They stroked his shoulders, began to wrap themselves lovingly around him. She was staring him square in the eye with that gusto she had, a small smirk playing about her divinely shaped lips.

Her garments drew him in, closer, until he was circling his arms around her tiny waist, gazing slightly down at her petite, delectable form, at every sharp detail of her snow-white, angelic face.

He saw himself suddenly from the outside, standing a few metres from the scene.  
He watched as Elizabeth's eyes closed again, and she leaned toward Captain Sparrow, mouth ready to gently connect with his. His head bent in reciprocation towards her. Her dress had swallowed him up almost completely; he was cocooned in her supernatural embrace, and as their lips touched more softly than the brush of feathers, a great, powerful white light exploded between them, utterly blinding, all-consuming, and it swept them away from Jack's view. It swept him away too, and for a moment he didn't know who or where he was.

He jerked up in bed, gasping for air, fire coarsing through his veins, his whole body feeling so charged with incredible power and ecstasy that he felt he would float up off the bed towards the ceiling.

As the apocalyptic sensation began to calm, he made to get up.  
Then stopped as he noticed, and looked down at the ridiculously emphasised shape pushing up against the fabric of his trousers.

He groaned, threw himself back onto the mattress, and began to unbutton himself.


	6. Chapter 6

Playlist: 'Closer' by Kings of Leon. (Another motherfugging sexy track).

I hope you liked that last chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!  
Looks like Jack is getting more than he bargained for.

Thank you for the lovely reviews, I'm glad you're enjoying the playlists and the thick-and-fast chapters. I need something to help me recover from revision every day, and this is perfect :)

* * *

**6**

_Oh, a nice fat cook wouldn't do us any harm  
__Oh, a roll in the clover wouldn't do us any harm  
Oh, a long spell in gaol  
Oh, a nice watch below  
Oh, a night with the gals wouldn't do us any harm._

* * *

**'Closer'.**

Three days later.

Jack stumbled onto the deck and took the helm, half-dizzy.  
The dream, again.  
It had been slightly different that time, in small ways, but he forgot now.  
And he had woken up for a second time with the most intense, ridiculous cravings, the insane need to keep his frustrations at bay, else he thought he would break under the torturous deprivation.

Was this really happening to him? More than just the once?  
Usually he only thought about doing the dirty with gals _while _he was doing them.  
There was never much space in between desire and getting.

His gut seemed to clench and sink inside him for a moment as he realised, this time, there was likely going to be no correlation between desiring and getting at all.  
A Governor's daughter may look very well and reciprocative in his dreams, but in the greyer light of reality the most he would get was a wrinkled nose to convey her disgust.  
One of the only disadvantages of being a fugitive of the law.  
No classy lasses.

Not that he preferred classy lasses generally - the poor were usually more fun - but...  
_But_. There was always a 'but' when it came to this sort of thing, wasn't there?  
Admitting he was interested in something other than treasure, and the _Pearl_.

Perhaps that was just it. She was something like the _Pearl_. Her attraction lay in her infuriating ability to evade his clutches, to remain just out of his reach.

He brushed off the small, argumentative thought that it could equally be because of the potential he saw in her, her fierce nature, her wild lust for excitement -  
That, in the depths of his unadmitted base desires, she was a storm he had never encountered, a storm he would like very much to have the opportunity to conquer.

To revel in her fire, then quench it with the power of his long, wet kisses - to throw her against things, feel her flaying fists, injuring him, tearing at his hair - let her fight under him, let the ferocious, vicious animal inside her battle with him.

Then grasp her wrists, pin her helpless, enjoy the bites she administered to his mouth as he smothered her lips, and kiss her roughly - to finally feel her beginning to fight alongside him, not against him, submitting to his ruling will.

To hear her involuntary moans and feel her limbs slackened with pleasure, place a hand on her throat, slightly threatening but playful -

To abruptly throw her onto his Captain's mattress and rip her clothes from her and scatter them amongst the plush velvet cushions...

Oh, bugger.

That quiet argumentative thought wasn't as quiet as it had seemed to be.  
He smirked silently to himself.

He was a fool.

**Music Fades Out Gently.**

"Brace the mainsail!" he barked. He needed to pay attention to the functions of the ship.  
He shielded his eyes from the harsh sunlight and gazed ahead, and - he could see the Isle de Muerta.  
That perked him up to no end.  
Understatement. It made him practically want to dance with hearty, bloodlusty thrills.  
His madman's grin was fixed resolutely back in place, replacing the secret smirk.

"How is it that Jack came by that compass?" he heard from behind him a half-hour later, as they were drawing up to the island.  
The whelp.

"Not a lot's known about Jack Sparrow before he showed up in Tortuga with a mind to go after the treasure of the Isla de Muerta . That was before I met him, back when he was Captain of the Black Pearl."  
Gibbs. Just like him to give everything away at once.  
"Yes, he mentioned - it was stolen from him."  
"And a hard-learned lesson it was. Three days out on the venture, the first mate comes to him and says everything's an equal share. That should mean the location of the treasure, too, so Jack gives up the bearings. That night - there was a mutiny. They marooned Jack on an island and left him to die but not before he?d gone mad with the heat."  
"Ah. So that's the reason for all the...?"

Jack turned around to see what impressions Will was doing, half-hoping to have an excuse to snap at him, but he just missed it.  
"Reason's got nothing to do with it." Gibbs said solemnly, unaware that he was being observed, "Now Will, when a man is marooned he is a given a pistol with a single shot, one shot. Well it won't do much good hunting or to be rescued. But after three weeks of a starvin' belly and thirst, that pistol will start to look real friendly. But Jack - he escaped the island, and he still has that one shot. Oh, but he won't use it, though, save for one man. His mutinous first mate."  
"Barbossa."  
"Aye."  
"How did Jack get off the island?"

Bloody nosy git.

"Well, I'll tell ye. He waded out into the shallows and there he waited three days and three nights till all manner of sea creature came and acclimated to his presence. And on the fourth morning, he _roped_ himself a couple of sea turtles, _lashed_ 'em together and made a raft!"  
An incredulous pause.  
Jack signalled to Cotton to take the helm, and meandered innocently up to the pair of seadogs.  
"He roped a couple of sea turtles?" Will condescended with a sneer.  
"Aye, sea turtles."  
"What did he use for rope?"

The pair looked up as Jack's shadow fell across them.  
"Human hair." he murmured ominously, "From my back."  
Will's eyebrows shot up and nearly disappeared into his tangled hair. Jack frowned.  
"Let go of the anchor!" he bellowed, instead of slapping Will like he wanted to.

"Let go of the anchor, sir!" came the obedient reply.

On second thoughts about flogging the morals out of this lot - Jack did quite appreciate that they hadn't carried out a mutiny of their own yet. A sight better than the last lot.

He looked at Will for a moment, and wondered whether he should feel guilty for selling him off to Barbossa for his own ends. The boy had no motive for being here but honesty and trust. Trust in Jack.  
Well then, it was his own bloody fault that he was potentially about to be drained dry of blood. He should have known Jack for a rotten liar and run for it when he could.  
Not that Jack would have let him.

_Stop thinking about other peoples' problems. It's no use to us._

"Young Mr. Turner and I are to go ashore." Jack stated, mostly to Gibbs.  
He turned to head for the longboat.  
Gibbs caught up with him, and grabbed him by the shoulder.  
"Captain! What if the worst should happen?"

Jack considered. The thought of being left behind in a sticky spot was never appealing.  
But then, to have Barbossa claim the _Interceptor _too...  
Too much to bear. Definitely too much.

"Keep to the code." he advised casually.  
"Aye, the code."

As they lowered themselves onto the ocean and Jack briefly thought about the look on 'Lizabeth's face when he arrived - perhaps she would even look glad to see him - it suddenly struck him that she may already be dead. Barbossa and his crew were unpredictable. If they needed her blood to lift the curse, who knows where they could have cut her open.  
If they had already begun the ritual.

"Hurry up, we might still be in time." he said louder than he'd meant to, suddenly putting his back into rowing. Will looked surprised, but didn't ask any stupid questions.


	7. Chapter 7

****I was doing extra research on my Victorian Decadent Literature module, and I was looking at the French writer Mallarme, a great boundary-pusher.

And then I found this. I don't know about you guys but I literally nearly cried as I read it. He says everything I've been thinking recently. It's so uplifting and at the same time so sad.

I just thought it would fit with this fiction perfectly, as the voice of the narrator in their own thoughts, away from the story's action for a while.

Disclaimer: I did not write this poetry. Mallarme did. Because he was a bloody brilliant French person.

* * *

**Sea Breeze**

The flesh is sad, alas! – and I've read all the books.

Let's go! Far off. Let's go! I sense

That the birds, intoxicated, fly

Deep into unknown spume and sky!

Nothing – not even old gardens mirrored by eyes –

Can restrain this heart that drenches itself in the sea,

O nights, or the abandoned light of my lamp,

On the void of paper, that whiteness defends,

No, not even the young woman feeding her child.

I shall go! Steamer, straining at your ropes

Lift your anchor towards an exotic rawness!

A Boredom, made desolate by cruel hope

Still believes in the last goodbye of handkerchiefs!

And perhaps the masts, inviting lightning,

Are those the gale bends over shipwrecks,

Lost, without masts, without masts, no fertile islands...

But, oh my heart, listen to the sailors' chant!


	8. Chapter 8

Playlist: 'The Might of Rome' from Gladiator. 'Hold the Ice' from King Arthur 2007.

* * *

**7**

_Oh whiskey straight and whiskey strong  
__Give me some whiskey and I'll sing you a song  
If whiskey comes too near my nose  
I tip it up and down she goes  
A glass of grog for every man  
And a bottle full for the shantyman._

* * *

"What Code is Gibbs to keep to if the worst should happen?" Will asked in an anxious tone, eyeing a particularly nasty looking skull as Jack rowed his best, feeling quite exhausted.  
His arms hurt, and his chest ached.  
Why was the whelp asking stupid questions now? Surely he knew they had other priorities.  
Still. Looking out for his own well-being. Made sense.  
"Pirate's Code." Jack huffed, "Any man that falls behind, is left behind."

Will raised an eyebrow in what could only be a disdainful look.  
"No heroes amongst thieves, eh?"  
Cheeky bugger.  
"You know," Jack retorted irritably, "for having such a bleak outlook on pirates you're well on your way to becoming one. Helped commandeer a ship of the Fleet, sailed with a buccaneer crew out of Tortuga."  
"Practically at gun point."  
"You had your own reasons an' all, don't deny it."  
A flash of gold leapt up from the water and struck their eyes. Will stared at it intensely.  
Jack knew the feeling.  
All this gold was really his. Soon he would be able to hold it in his palms, pass it onto other hands in exchange for rum, good company, perhaps a hot bath...  
"At any rate, it appears you're completely obsessed with treasure." he chided.  
"That's not true. I am not obsessed with treasure." Will hissed with repulsion as they landed the boat and tied her off.

Jack could see the great gathering of pirates just ahead, in the gap between a mound of gold and the rough, low cave ceiling. His eyes flew straight to the chest of Cortes, to the two figures standing behind it.  
She was alive, so far. Wearing a gorgeously soft-looking, carmine-coloured dress, with her hair flowing loose and her mahogany eyes wide with terror.  
For a brief second he felt that he had gone back to the dream, a dream turned nightmare.  
The circumstances had changed, but the effect she had on him hadn't.  
"Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate." he replied distantly to Will's comment, eyes riveted on her.  
His mind was racing, trying to decipher the best way out, the quickest, with her in one piece.  
He had considered it before, in passing, half-heartedly - taking her with him at the end of all this.  
But now he hadn't a choice. He had seen what he most desired, and he was grimly determined to have it, if only for a while, even if by force.

What he most desired? Wasn't that the _Pearl_?

Of course it was the _Pearl. Pearl _first, wench second.  
But now, for planning, and action.

_Opportune moment. Secure Will, barter with Barbossa, get the flamin' hell out of there with the Pearl before this lot were lifted of the curse and perhaps decided to go back on their bargain.  
Can I save the whelp?  
Should I bother?_

A nagging gut feeling told him that he should.  
A distraction scheme, then, to get them all out? Pretend to leave Turner with them - but somehow not. This was a bloody challenge, an' all.

**'The Might of Rome'.**

He and Will crept up the gold heap, gazing down on the scene.  
Barbossa was delivering a typically melodramatic speech to rile the crew's spirits.

"For ten years we've been tested and tried, and each man jack of you here has proved his mettle a hundred times over," an approving roar, "and a hundred times again!"  
The place erupted in agreement.  
"Punished, we were. The lot of us - disproportionate to our crimes! Here it is - the cursed treasure of Cortes himself. Every last piece that went astray, we have returned - save for this!"

Will made to move up the stacks of coins. Startled, Jack pulled him roughly back down, grimacing. Why couldn't the stupid blighter just let the plan go to plan?  
"What?" the boy whispered angrily, "Why aren't we attacking - negotiating - whatever it is?"  
"We wait for the opportune moment." he warned, keeping a wary eye on Elizabeth. The moment Barbossa bent her over the chest to slice her throat, his time would be up. He had to think on his feet, he needed more time - she complicated things. It would have to be rushed, messy, possibly a failure.

"What opportune moment? What are you waiting for? What are you going to do in there anyway?"  
"Look, it's not important to you -"  
"But it is! What am I here for, Jack? You needed me before because there were no other - pirates." he argued with a hint of shame, "Now you've got a whole boat full of pirates and you've still brought me. Only me. What's so special about me?"

"_Don't _make me have to work this out with you unconscious, lad. It'll prove far worse for the both of us. I'm trying to figure a way to get us all out -"  
"Out? Was I ever _not_ going to get out?" Will asked challengingly, aggression showing in the sudden set of his jaw.  
"Look, son, you're part of the bargain, so just work with me -"  
"You think I'm going to just go along with this and hope you have good intentions?"  
"Yes, yes, exactly that -"  
"Not good enough!" William rushed to arm himself with an oar, "I want to live, thanks very much."

Jack sighed and pulled out his sword reluctantly.  
"You are getting in my way, boy. Again." he murmured, as a last warning.  
"I should have seen this coming." the whelp swung for him powerfully. Jack deflected the blow, surprised by its force, "What do you want me for, Jack?"  
"I just need your blood, tha's'all!"  
"Oh, comforting!" another blow, another parry. They circled one another.  
"_You're the key_, William, that can lift their curse. That's all they're after. They need your blood and they need it badly enough that they'll give anything for it."  
"Sounds perfect for you."  
"Well, yes."  
"And what if they want more than a few drops?"  
"I was _trying_ to think up a solution to that before you decided to turn all iffy -"

"Blood begun by blood - by blood undone!" Barbossa cried.  
Jack gasped involuntarily, and abandoned the fight to search for Elizabeth, to see what they were doing to her. He was about to run up the gold mound to interrupt the ritual with or without Will's help -

**Music Stops.**

A dull thud echoed against the back of his head. His eyes crossed, and the last thing he felt was his body slamming to the floor in an ungainly manner.

Bugger.

"That's it?" Elizabeth choked, startled.  
She looked at the long, smooth cut in her palm. If it weren't for the huge relief she felt, she would have been a bit disdainful. It wasn't all that piratey.  
"Waste not." Barbossa smirked at her.

It didn't work.  
How could it not work, if they'd brought her all this way?  
The crew was in uproar, understandably.  
And despite the clench of fear in her stomach, she felt triumphant. She had somehow prevented these criminals from achieving their goal.  
Perhaps, she thought - her inner adventurous spark flaring up - perhaps that would be worth dying for, to know these disgusting, immoral men would be cursed forever.

Barbossa turned to her, fury in his eyes.  
"You, maid! Your father, what was his name? Was your father _William Turner_?"  
"No." she snarled back aggressively.  
"Where's his child? The child that sailed from England eight years ago, the child in whose veins flows the blood of William Turner! Where?"

She tried not to show recognition as the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place.  
They had rescued Will, from a shipwreck - because he was out at sea, looking for his father - his father the _pirate_.  
Well, she would never give him up anyway. Rather she than he who died. He was innocent in all this.

Barbossa backhanded her violently, and she tumbled down the golden slope, abruptly losing consciousness.  
Not for long, however. After a few moments, the roaring crowd jerked her back into reality. They were livid, ready to shed blood, any blood. She had to get away.

"I think she lied to us!"  
"You brought us here for nothing!"

Spotting the medallion in the dirt beside her, she grabbed it, and lowered herself into the lukewarm water, drifting away behind the gold heaps as quietly and quickly as she could.  
She headed for what she hoped was the entrance, once out of the pool and safely out of sight.

"William?" she gasped, rounding a corner.  
He turned to stare at her. There was an odd kind of anger smouldering in his dark eyes.  
"What are you doing here? You need to get away, they're looking for you, you can't be here!" she whispered in panic.

It was only then that she noticed the figure lying prone on the floor.  
"What?" she said in a hollow voice, disbelievingly, "You were coming to rescue me? Really?"  
"No, he wasn't." Will said with vehemence, "He was here for his own schemes. Let's go."  
"We can't leave him here!"  
"We can." he went to grab her wrist, but she darted away, suddenly wary.  
"William. We have to help him. He was going to stop them from hurting me -" she looked at the oar in Will's hand, and the blade case aside by Jack, "and you prevented him?"

"It's not like that. Trust me, you will be glad once I explain it to you."  
With that, Will pounced on her, practically lifting her off her feet as she struggled silently. He dumped her into the boat, gathering all the oars from the others and piling them in before setting off.

**'Hold the Ice'.**

She sat sulkily looking behind Will, watching Jack's body getting further and further away.  
He couldn't have been here just for his own ends.

_"Where did you get that medallion?"_

He had said it. And his eyes had lit up wide as he'd heard her utter William's name.  
He had known.

_"Why don't you give it to me though, jus' to be on the safe side?"  
"Once... upon a squiffy bloody time, there was a Captain of a ship, whose crew had betrayed him."_

Could it be?...  
But in his grand plan of bartering Will's blood and the medallion for his ship back - (she wondered that it suddenly comforted her that she had been aboard _his _ship, ghostly and horrific as the crew had been) - in his grand schemes, where did she fit?  
What was he thinking?

Somehow she felt that she was a part to be considered at the end of things. Logically, if things went Jack's way, and she was left over after Barbossa's crew were mortal, and Jack had his ship back... she was at his mercy.  
Perhaps he planned on transferring her safely home.

Perhaps he would have made her an offer of some other kind.  
In any case, he wouldn't have abandoned her on the island. He just wouldn't.  
Firstly, there would be no point in it.  
And second - well, the second was more a fragile hope than anything.

A hope she did not want to have. She swatted the thought away, furious with herself.  
A pirate? A dirty, drunkard, conniving, sly, wretched criminal?  
She was the Governor's daughter. She deserved much better.  
She deserved a Commodore.

_"Ever tasted adventure? Felt the wind at your back, the spray on your face?"_

She shuddered.  
It wasn't the criminal that she saw in him. It was the free man, the adventurer, the discoverer of wild unexplainable things who would sail to the ends of the earth to gain his heart's desire.  
Who loved the sea.  
Anybody who loved the sea couldn't be that bad.

She scolded herself for even thinking about him at a time like this. It was never going to happen now.  
He was on the island, and the crew were going to find him, and if they really were his mutineers, they would probably kill him on the spot.  
The thought of his death seemed ridiculous. He was Captain Jack Sparrow. He couldn't die.  
Perhaps he would find a way out by himself.

"Hey, boy, where be Jack?"  
Will gazed hard at Gibbs for a moment.  
"He fell behind."  
Then he took Elizabeth's arm and led her below deck, his shoulders rigid with simmering rage.

She had imagined her rescue to be a lot less painful than this.


	9. Chapter 9

I hope you enjoy the very very altered version of Elizabeth and Will's talk below deck! I know making them just friends means he no longer gets to cop a feel of her boobs, but there you have it. All he got out of it was a cursed medallion, anyway.

Meanwhile, I think they're pretty sweet together as childhood friends. Their relationship works very differently and it was fun to play around with.

* * *

**8**

_When Jack is ashore he beats his way_  
_Towards some boarding-house_  
_He's welcomed in with his rum and gin_  
_And he's fed with his pork and scouse_  
_For he'll spend and spend and never offend_  
_But lay drunk on the ground, ground, ground_  
_When my money is gone it's the same old song_  
_Get up, Jack! Will, sit down!_

* * *

"The girl's blood didn't work, did it?" Jack said confidently as twenty pistols were cocked and aimed at his head.  
Barbossa froze mid-walk with his back to him.

"Hold your fire!" he barked, spinning on his heel to stare at Jack menacingly.

"You know whose blood we need." he stated.

_Oh-ho. Watch out, William. Jack's a-coming back._

He smirked with a vengeful, self-satisfied glee.  
"... I know whose blood ye need."

* * *

Elizabeth bandaged her hand too fast, in a downright temper. Will sat across from her, unapologetically scowling, twisting his thumbs together as he waited for her to say something.

"I know you're a good man, Will. We brought you up to be." she sighed finally, still wrapping away, "That's why I don't understand why you left him there."

"Miss Swann -" he began respectively despite his disagreement with her.  
"Oh, for goodness' sakes, Will. Just call me by my name. We're not in Port Royal any more."

"Elizabeth, then," he corrected, controlling his temper, "I don't think you quite understand."  
"Well, explain it to me better!" she snapped, real sparks of annoyance in her eyes.

"He plotted all along to bargain me off for his wretched ship." Will argued with indignance, "Elizabeth, he was going to let me die to fulfill his own ends -"  
"You don't know that. They didn't kill me."  
"They well could have."

"How do you know he wasn't trying to double-bluff and rescue us both somehow, if it turned out for the worse?"  
"I don't, but I wouldn't care to risk it."  
"He's Captain Jack Sparrow." she retorted, "Haven't you read about him? He can do anything."

Will gazed at her, at a genuine loss for words.  
There was no convincing her. She had weaved so much imaginary glory around the man, filling her child's head with pirate fantasies.

Sparrow had been right. All those days playing in the Governor's house and down by the beach. Playing pirates. Or 'sailors' as Elizabeth had announced to her father, should he happen to enquire into the contents of their imagined worlds.

"He's not the moral genius you think he is, Elizabeth. Having him on board could put you in more danger. It's my obligation to make sure that doesn't happen." he said earnestly.  
She was silent, her body language giving off a resounding _no_ of its own accord.

"He wants one thing, and one thing only: his ship. That's all he cares about. I know you spoke to him before they took you - and I know he must have left an impression on you. But don't think that just because you exchanged words between cell bars means he came all this way to rescue you, or even with you in mind."

That last part was a lie. She _had _been on Jack's mind - just the few fleeting times he had mentioned her, praised her for her supposedly pirate-esque qualities... He probably had intended, somewhere in the back of his wily head, to do at least some good by her if he got everything else.

Will didn't like the thought of what _some good _may have meant anyhow.

"Besides," he began, taking up his train of thought, "What do you think he would have done with you after, if you _had_ been on his mind? Taken you all the way home?"  
"What are you implying?"  
"That he's a pirate. And therefore probably a womaniser."

Elizabeth glared rebelliously at him for a few moments, and he could tell that he had hurt her.  
She was always most stubborn when he was closest to challenging her weak spots.

Jack had been right. Again. She was a fighter, if not a pirate. She hadn't been made for the world she'd grown up in.

William sighed heavily. He didn't regret leaving Jack, not one bit, but... she did. And that was what mattered.  
"Do you want to talk about... what happened?" he gently laid a hand close to her freshly bandaged one on the table.

She glanced up at him, dark orbs sparkling with half-formed tears. She didn't want him to see her as weak, she never had, but he was her friend - her closest friend - and she needed to let it out to somebody.

"They were - cursed." she half-whispered, half-choked, looking down quickly as her eyes finally overflowed.  
It was all just too much for her, Will saw, what with the guilt for Jack dumped on top of everything else. She didn't feel relieved, like he did. She must feel torn, somehow.  
"Jack said something about a curse." he felt guilty for even mentioning the name to her.

She nodded, dabbing quickly at her face.  
"They were skeletons. Held-together skeletons, like some awful nightmare, but it wouldn't go away. Will, I had the most awful -" she broke off, shivering and taking little gasps, trying to prevent the sobs from breaking out.

He leaned over and put both arms around her, her forehead buried into his shoulder.

"I was so scared."  
"I know. That's why I came for you. I would have, even if he hadn't held me at gunpoint to make sure I got on the ship with him."

"But, Will - I don't know. It sounds awful, but... it was the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me." she burst out, fingers of her good hand clenching on his back, "I've never been so terrified in all my life, but even when I thought I was going to die, and I realised they couldn't lift the curse with my blood - Will, I felt so _heroic_. I felt that, even if I died, it would have been for a cause. I've never had a cause before. It was everything I thought it would be, and more."

Will didn't like where this was going.

"But you didn't die, Elizabeth. And your father doesn't have to grieve you. You can come home and tell him all about your adventure."  
"I know." she muttered, but there was still a hint of wistfulness in her tone.

"It's probably a good thing your first experience with pirates was such a bad one." he tried to joke, "It would have been a lot harder to bring you home if you'd had a jolly old time."  
"Yes... First experience." she repeated.

"And the last, I hope." he broke the embrace quickly and gazed into her eyes, putting on a solemn expression, "You have to promise you won't go looking for more trouble once we're safely home."  
"And what about you? We've discovered your father's real identity, out here. You're not going to turn your back on that, are you? Not if you have a chance of finding him?"

Will seemed to switch off, as though a flame had suddenly died inside of him.  
She had never seen him so serious or sad-looking.

"That is another thing." he meditated quietly.

Elizabeth looked at him for a long while. Then she pulled out the medallion from its hiding place, lifted the chain from her neck, and handed it to him without a word.  
He glanced up at her, confused.  
"I took it the day we found you." she faltered by way of explanation, "I'm sorry... I didn't know what else to do with it."

"I thought I'd lost it. It was a gift - from my father."

He looked at it steadily, something rising and billowing out behind his eyes like a gathering storm.  
"Jack told me he was a good man. A good pirate. I didn't want to believe him. I haven't even thought about it, not for all of this journey... only about the possibility of finding him."

Elizabeth shifted nervously.  
"That's what they wanted, as well as the blood. To lift the curse. It's - aztek gold, cursed gold."

"Well." he clenched his teeth and his fist, his breath tight in his chest, "Here is the proof. All along. My blood. _Pirate_ blood."  
With each pause his eyes were getting blacker, his brows slanting and then crushing together with the almighty weight of his burden.

It mattered to him. She could see that it mattered so much to him.  
He blamed himself. Somehow, in some foolish twisted way, he managed to hate himself for being descended unknowingly from crime.

Governor Swann had really enforced good morals into the boy. Or maybe that was just his father's spirit, residing in him.

Without warning, William slammed the medallion down onto the table, probably hurting his hand in the process.  
It was time to leave him be.

* * *

Jack stepped casually in front of Barbossa's extended telescope, in a last attempt to fix his so well improvised plan in place.

_Medallion. Whelp git. Negotiations. Pearl - and girl.  
__Nothing going to get in me way this time._

"I'm 'aving a thought here, Barbossa." he said, knowing full well how annoying he was being, and silently revelling in it, "What say we run up a flag of truce? I scurry over to the Interceptor, and I negotiate the return of your medallion, eh? What say you to that?"

It was a long shot that Hector would let him out of his sights now.  
But he had to warn the lass, and secure the traitor while he was at it.

"Now you see, Jack, that's exactly the attitude that lost you the Pearl. People are easy to search when they're dead." the grimy, heartless blaggard sneered, "Lock him in the brig."  
He even confiscated Jack's apple as he was being led firmly away.

Bugger. Bugger, bugger, _bugger_.


	10. Chapter 10

Playlist: 'Run Free' from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron  
(More Hans Zimmer genius, I'm in love with him).

* * *

So, this is the chapter where Jack and Elizabeth first start to really encounter one another - which means some real interaction is going to take place! Yes, lots of that.

The tune I've picked out for this chapter works perfectly with the action, at the pace that I read at.

If you don't read quickly, I would ask you to read it once over without the music so you get what's going on - then read it again, quick as you can, with the music this time. Effect is everything!

If you're reading and you haven't reviewed yet... please do. I starve without feedback.

* * *

**9**

_The work was hard, the voyage long_  
_The seas were high, the gales were strong_  
_The food was bad, the wage was low,_  
_But now ashore again we'll go_  
_The sails are furled, our work is done_  
_And now onshore we'll have our fun!_

* * *

"Hands aloft to loose t'gallants! With this wind at her stern, she'll carry every sail we've got." Gibbs cried at large to the crew as Elizabeth emerged on deck.  
She ran to the helm where Gibbs was standing with the dark pirate lady who was steering. They looked flushed and anxious. The crew were running scared around the deck, rushing to follow the orders.

"What's happening?" she demanded as she reached them.  
"The Black Pearl, she's gaining on us." the woman snapped back at her, directing her gaze towards the darkly looming ship that was, sure enough, catching up to them with a great, ominous, cloudy oblivion at her back.

"This is the fastest ship in the Caribbean!" Elizabeth protested, uncertainly.  
"You can tell them that after they've caught us."

_Think, Elizabeth. Think. What have you read about like this before?  
_Something vague came swirling back into her memory. An escape route... that some nameless ship had attempted once, on the pages of one in a hundred books, in the middle of one in a thousand dangers.  
"We're shallow on the draft, right?" she asked with growing confidence.  
"Aye."  
"Well, then can't we lose them amongst those shoals?" she pointed.

Gibbs' expression lit up.  
He was probably congratulating himself for telling her all those pirate tales, so long ago now, when once they really knew one another. He had liked her then. He _adored_ her now.  
"We don't have to outrun them long, just long enough." he exclaimed in triumph.  
"Lighten the ship, stem to stern!" the lady shouted, with surprising gusto.  
The crew looked towards the helm in confusion. Gibbs ran to the railing and shouted to them.  
"Anything that we can afford to lose - see that it's lost!"

Just a few minutes later, Will glanced out over the ocean behind them and caught sight of the oars protruding from the _Pearl's _gun ports. He stepped on a cannon one of the crew was about to toss overboard. "We're gonna need that." he muttered.

"It was a good plan - up 'till now." said the woman to Elizabeth in a desolate tone.  
Will scrambled up to the helm.  
"Gibbs! We have to make a stand. We must fight! Load the guns!"  
"With what?" Anamaria interjected.  
"Anything. Everything! Anything we have left!"

Gibbs wasted no time. He was off.  
"Load the guns! Take shot and langrage. Nails and crushed glass! With a will!"  
He was back presently, however, with a look of despair on his rugged features, "The Pearl is going to luff up on our port quarter. She'll rake us without ever presenting a target!" he cried, looking back at the ever-nearing vessel.

There was a short silence - the situation looked lost.

"Lower the anchor on the right side."  
The voice was Elizabeth's. Will looked at her in semi-surprise.  
Of course, it would be her who came up with all the good ideas. She'd read enough about them.  
"On the starboard side!" she repeated in urgency.  
"It certainly has the element of surprise." he agreed.

"You're daft, lady! You both are!" Anamaria cried scornfully, but looked hesitant.  
"Daft like Jack!" Gibbs stated proudly, running to the railing. Will's gut clenched. "Lower the starboard anchor! _Do it_, ye dogs, or it's _you_ we'll load into the cannons!"

"Let go!" Elizabeth yelled.  
The _Interceptor _swung around suddenly with frightening speed, catching even the crew offguard.

The _Pearl _after a short delay swung hard to port, pulling itself up alongside. Barbossa was only a half-step behind them. Even Elizabeth's ideas looked doubtful for their eventual fate.

"Now!"  
"Fire!"  
"FIRE ALL!"

The very ocean seemed to quake with the force of twenty, forty, a hundred explosions, shrieking and pounding intermittently between the two ships. Aboard the helm, Elizabeth, Will, Gibbs and Anamaria ducked out of the way as splinters flew past their heads.

"We could use a few more ideas, lass!" Gibbs hollared, resigning himself to the fact that the _Pearl _was giving maximum damage and receiving a lot less. Its crew would be swinging over any minute now.

"Your turn." she retorted.  
"We need us a devil's dowry."  
"We'll give them her!" Anamaria cut in, pointing her pistol very seriously at Elizabeth.  
"She's not what they're after." Will corrected, trying to keep a calm voice. He wasn't going to allow her to be shot, not after he'd come all this way with the hope of redeeming himself in her family's eyes.

Elizabeth sucked in a panicked breath, and clutched at the place where her necklace should have hung safely.  
"The medallion."  
He suddenly realised how stupid he had been, leaving it below deck.  
He spun on his heel and ran back for it, hoping to god the place hadn't been blown up yet.

He jumped down the hatch and immediately saw a problem. The table had tipped during their sudden change of direction, the floor was ankle-deep in water, and the medallion was nowhere to be seen.

An awful shot rang out, an explosion of splinters and chunks threw him clear off his feet, and then the mast slowly cracked and fell, with an almighty thud, directly over the hatch.  
He rose, getting water in the eyes, and then ran to the hatch which was hopelessly blocked. He took up a chunk of wood and smashed it repeatedly against the bars.  
"Hey! Hey! Below!"

* * *

Jack emerged from the hold, breathing in the thrilling, free air of battle. He had never been so glad to have a cannon fired at him in his life. He jumped up onto the ship's side, escaping the notice of the _Pearl's _crew, and snatched a rope that was swinging in perfect timing towards him.

**'Run Free'.**

The pirate that had been the previous swinger on said rope flew off, and crash landed some yards behind him on the deck. He gazed up at Jack with dizzy rage.  
"Thanks very much." Jack said by way of apology, and then swung gracefully over to the _Interceptor._

He swung a bit too far, however, and couldn't let go for fear of a nasty drop. On his way back he accidentally knocked somebody over - he briefly saw that it was Gibbs' current opponent - and on finally boarding the _Interceptor _he went back to hand Gibbs his hipflask.

"Jack!" Gibbs gasped with evident delight.  
"Bloody empty." he shoved the canteen into Gibbs' hands.

He glanced about, and immediately caught sight of Elizabeth grappling with a particularly gruesome looking pirate. He rushed to her aid.  
He caught the scallywag's wrist just as he was about to bring his weapon down upon her. The bloke looked around in confusion.  
"That's not very nice." Jack reprimanded.  
Elizabeth smashed her attacker's face in with the butt of her gun, and he went backflipping over the side of the ship.

Jack pulled her to safety, ducking them down behind the railing to avoid the continuous gunfire.

Her eyes danced with unbridled joy as she gazed disbelievingly at him.  
"Jack." she said simply.  
"Ello, 'Lizabeth."  
"You came back. Again."  
"All part of the plan, luv. Ye alright?" he grasped her arms a little tighter between his hands.

He didn't know why he was bothering with 'alright's. He had to find the medallion before that blasted crew did.

But she was staring him straight, square in the eye, and she was so close, he could smell her sweet breath, make out every perfect line of her face. Her awed, triumphant, conspiring expression made him feel that she had been waiting for him, that he was the one person she had wanted to see, that even in the midst of all this chaos, he was the one bloke she'd hoped would turn up.

And he reciprocated that notion, with every electrified, glorified fibre of his being.

"I still owe you a ruddy kiss, darling, for getting me out of that cell." he grinned.  
"I owe you more, for coming to rescue me."

He raised an eyebrow, not understanding her meaning.

"To rescue me _and _the _Pearl_, it doesn't matter in what order." she laughed, in turn squeezing his shoulder, "You're here. I'm so glad you're alive."  
"As am I, luv. Now, where's that medallion?"

"Where's Will?" she suddenly remembered, taking off in an abrupt rush of panic.

**Music Fades Out.**

She found him yelling for help, the mast stuck immovably over the hatch.

"I can't move it!" she cried, just as rough hands wrapped themselves around her.  
"Eilzabeth!" he screamed as she was bodily dragged away.

Jack suddenly spotted the damned creature making off with the medallion.

"Monkey!" he uttered wildly, and cavorted after it.  
He leapt onto the fallen mast connecting the two ships, scrambling on all fours after it, and was just reaching out to grab its tail when -

He raised his face to gaze into the eyes of the sneering man that the animal had taken shelter with.

Barbossa stared right back, a triumphant smile playing mockingly around his mouth.

"Why thankyou, Jaaack."  
"You're welcome." Jack answered sarcastically.  
"Not you. We named the monkey Jaaack."

... How insulting.

"Gents! Our hope is restored!" the blaggard cried in unbridled glee.  
Jack looked about at the cheering mob, and smiled with ironic congratulations.

And just like that, the Interceptor was lost.


	11. Chapter 11

No playlist this time, we're having a break.

So, we're right on the brink of the very exciting Desert Island Chapter, which will be well worth the wait!

Please keep reviewing, I don't feel like writing otherwise.

* * *

**11**

_They gave me wine that tasted fine, but it went right to my head_  
_Then they threw their clothes away, and carried me to bed_  
_When I awoke next morning I had an aching head_  
_My clothes and all my money, and my lady friends had left_  
_Lord, I don't miss the money, as some other sailors might_  
_But I wish I could remember if I had some fun that night!_

* * *

"If any of you as much as _thinks_ the word _parley_, I'll have your guts for garters!"  
Pintel was having a right old time of it.

Jack would have found this pesky, pot-bellied, overly-aspirational little man altogether very amusing. But given the situation, he did not feel inclined to chuckle, guffaw, or in any other way express his recreational indulgence.

The one thing that could have regained him his ship was either already drowned, or about to be blown up into very small, useless parts, or both.

The only satisfaction he could derive from this awfully sticky situation was the fact that Barbossa and his damned crew of treacherous miscreants would never be rid of the curse now.  
He silently blessed Cortes, for so benevolently bestowing such a wickedly brilliant curse upon that bleeding treasure.

Well. It was a benevolent act from where Jack was standing.  
And at the moment, he was standing in a place with no visible escape route and not many other prospects neither, so old Cortes was all he had.

He blinked in sudden reaction as the _Interceptor_ made a very loud noise, and soared up into the air in great wooden chunks and clouds of smoke, at a safe distance.

Tell a lie. A safe distance, unless you were William Turner.

Elizabeth, saucy wench as always, took this opportunity to launch herself at Barbossa in hopes of arresting him - much good that would do - beating him pointlessly with her small fists.

"You've got to stop it! _Stop it_!" she cried, her words barely audible for their sheer volume.  
He caught her wrists, pressing his yellowed nails into her skin with a smug grin on his ugly gitty face.  
"Welcome back, Miss!" he replied in mock courtesy, "You took advantage of our hospitality last time. It holds fair now that you return the favor."

With that, he flung her gracelessly into the open, waiting arms of his gathered seamen. They howled with feverish glee, groping at her dress, her hips, her breasts, her loose hair.

_That's odd.  
_Jack looked in bewilderment at the sword that was pointed rather threateningly at his throat.  
It was only as he pulled up sharp from his rushed attack, seeing the crew's suspicious eyes all on him, that he realised what he was doing.  
In the middle of a heroic act of self-sacrifice to save the girl.  
Of course, the sight of an actual weapon had brought him out of this unthinking action. He wouldn't actually risk his neck to save her dignity.

But the sight of their hands still on her made his blood simmer.  
No, not boil. Just simmer. But it was still a form of mildly raging heat.

Their brown fingers shouldn't be all over her pure white skin, her golden locks.  
It just wasn't allowed.  
The entire ship, including his own crew, were looking at him now with curiosity, as he stood firm against the blade that rested on his throat, transfixed in half-perplexity, half-stubbornness.

They thought he was being... _protective_ of her. For his own sake.  
He wasn't a protective chap 'cept over one thing, and everybody knew it.  
He wasn't protecting her. He was just - preserving her.  
_Preserving? What the bloody hell did that mean, anyway?_

"Barbossa!" echoed a shout from behind him.

"William!" Elizabeth returned, voice rising with relief and renewed hope.

The whelp grabbed the nearest pistol, cocked it, and aimed it at Barbossa.  
"She goes free." he stated.

Oh boy.  
This couldn't in any possible way turn out positive for any of them.  
William. What a buffoon.

* * *

"I always liked you." Jack assured the pirate who was holding him in a vice-like grip.  
The ruffian just grunted in a negative manner.  
A manner which meant he was going to walk the plank, whether he liked it or not.

William wasn't just a buffoon. He was a gutless yellow-bellied slimy conniving thick-skulled codswalloping blaggard brute.

And he had sentenced them to a very likely death.


	12. Chapter 12

Playlist: 'Sorrow' from Gladiator.  
This song should naturally end when you're reading the sentence that begins 'Elizabeth looked as though she was about to...' so when the song ends, don't let it carry on into another one by accident. Let's not spoil the atmosphere!

'The Park on Piano' from Finding Neverland.

And lastly, 'The Kite' from Finding Neverland.

* * *

**12**

_It was a Friday morn' when we set sail_  
_And we were not so far from the land_  
_When our captain, he spied a mermaid so fair_  
_With a comb and glass in her hand._

* * *

**'Sorrow'.**

Finally, when he thought his legs could carry him no further and he would surely drown, Jack's toes touched the soft sea bed. His body began gradually to rise to meet the wretched island, with the sloping wet sands that were stirred up by his boots.

He followed Elizabeth's wading path, feeling the ropes around his wrists slowly slackening.  
He kept pulling on them. Shook them off, as he found himself waist deep, knee deep, ankle deep.

It didn't feel real.

She was waiting for him ashore, gazing at the _Pearl _as it disappeared swiftly on the horizon.  
So swiftly. So opposite to the way everything was here. Timeless, soft, gradual, slow.

They too, in their painfully gradual ascent to the island, had become slow motion beings, stuck in the endless waves of this outcast universe.  
It wasn't only the ship that had left them behind.  
The whole world had deserted them.

Jack followed her eyes. Spotted the tiny smudge that was his whole life's work and dreams, slipping away once again, dashing his every hope, after coming so close.  
So very close.

"That's the second time I've had to watch that man sail away with my ship."

Elizabeth looked as though she was about to touch his arm as he stalked past her, but drew her hand back, when she saw the dismal look on his face. His eyes were overshadowed - and not just by the dark kohl that always rimmed them. There was something terrible in his stare that she didn't want to provoke.

**Music Stops.**

She followed him quickly up the sands, as he headed directly towards his first and possibly only hope of comfort.

"So what do we do now?" she asked, tentatively but expectantly.  
"Nothing." he spat.

A slightly taken aback silence.

"But - but you were marooned on this island before, weren't you? So we can escape in the same way." she chased after him, her voice hardening a little, the only-child syndrome beginning to show through her concerned exterior.

"To what point and purpose, young missy?" he retorted glumly, stopping to take her in properly.

Her sea-soaked hair washed in waves down her shoulders, her delicate jaw was set in unladylike determination. But her wide eyes told him that she was really scared.  
He discovered that he didn't care at present.

"The _Black Pearl _is gone, and unless you have a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice -" he glanced furtively at her undergarments, making her blush furiously, "- unlikely - we are never going to catch them up in time. Savvy?"

He checked the tree trunk nearest him, then took four large steps to the spot he was hoping the rum would still be.  
He never thought, in a hundred years, that he would have to perform this location ritual again.  
It cut him to the core, that thought.

_Here we are again.  
_After swearing vengeance, after all that ruddy effort, after all those bleeding years of tracking, hoping, scraping by, he had finally had the traitor first mate in his grasp and the ship in his sights.

And now he was back at square one. In a hopeless cycle.  
How long would it take to find Barbossa and a good enough deal to barter with this time?  
Months? Years? Aeons?

How old would he be when he could finally clutch those gorgeous dark spokes in his hands again, as his own?  
When would he see a crew bow down to his every whim again?

Mind you, Hector's being very mortal again would come in useful, when he finally got off this island and found the blaggard.  
If he ever got away from this hellish place again...

He'd sold his soul for that ship.  
And he missed her.  
The girl would never understand that. She had never owned a thing so beautiful.

Elizabeth gazed blankly at him, flummoxed, as he jumped up and down a few times, feeling the springy boards that told him he was in the right place.  
"But you're Captain Jack Sparrow! You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Company, you sacked Nassau Port without even firing a shot!"

He ignored her. Her belief in him was very flattering, and the slightly romantic tone in her voice even more so, but it wasn't going to help him at this present time.  
All he needed right now was a stiff drink.

She bit her lower lip. Chewed on it hesitantly.  
"How did you escape last time?" she asked, eventually, in a soft, pleading voice.

He sighed, and finally turned to look at her.  
He hardly knew why he was acting so aloof. If anything it was her right to.

Classy wench.

And yet here she was, looking rather like a child just informed of the non-existence of fairies.  
Still hoping for a smile of reassurance, and the knowledge that the magic was still true, that she had been wickedly deceived, just for a moment there.

He didn't want to disappoint her faith.  
But then again, he didn't want to be stuck on this godforsaken prison.  
Who cared, really?

"Last time... Well, I was here a grand total of three days, 'Lizabeth, alright?" he heaved the cellar door open and ducked down into the underground haven, "The rumrunners used this island as a cache. Came by, and I was able to barter a passage off. From the looks of things, they've long been out of business. Probably have your _friend_ Norrington to thank for that."

There was a silence so long and painful that he didn't dare look up from the two bottles in his hands as he ascended the steps back onto the grassy sand.

Then... she did something he had never heard her do before.

She laughed.

He glanced at her, indignant.  
"What?"

She just looked at him hopelessly, and the sound came out again. A genuine, warm, fond laugh, at the same time genuine and disbelieving.

"That's your story?" she choked, "That's the secret - grand adventure - of the infamous Jack Sparrow?"

She put a hand over her mouth, and then did something very different.  
He didn't know quite what to make of this new hiccuping, involuntary noise either.

Her eyes closed tight shut as her shoulders jerked, and thick tears beaded slowly from her eyes, one by one, rolling and falling gently to bless the ground.

Women. Complete mysteries.

She moved her hand from her mouth to her forehead, leaning into it, eyes crumpling in delighted sorrow.  
The hysterics got worse, and Jack began to wonder if he was supposed to offer any form of comfort to stem this ridiculousness.

He took a very tentative step towards her, eyes fixated on her face warily.  
She seemed to lean towards him, expectant, and again, childish.

One arm awkwardly around her shoulder. Success.  
One of her arms gracefully around his neck. Good.  
His other arm - very warily - around her waist.

**'Park on Piano'.**

Her free arm, in sudden relief of his warmth, flung itself gratefully around his chest.

The good ol' one-arm-under, one-arm-over embrace.

Friendly. Comforting. Yes.  
Comforting, and warm, and...  
He tried to push more suggestive thoughts out of his mind.

They would only be flattened later, so best he flattened them himself, now.

He was snapped out of his brief reverie by the muffled sound of her voice against his shoulder.  
"You spent three days - lying on a beach - drinking rum?" she asked, the wholeness of a smile in her voice, but her petite frame still racked with shivers.

"Afraid so, darling." he murmured.

Her damp hair was strewn down his front, separating the materials of their clothing.  
He lifted the arm that was around her shoulder - hardly believing what he was daring, but daring anyway - and very, very softly drew his fingers through her long locks, all the way down to the tips, and then back up again to gently caress stray strands from her face.

She stared straight ahead over his back, at the endless blue horizon separating them from the rest of life.

"So that's it." she said in a blank, serious, hoarse tone, all the false joy suddenly gone from her body, "This is where we starve, and die."

"Luv." he tried to console her, pressing the back of her head with his palm. But he had nothing more to say.

He _had_ to say something more. She was shaking in his arms, and he disliked sensing her so disturbed. It was nothing like the strong, strict, blazing soul he had seen, triumphantly gleaming out from those hazel orbs in his Port Royal cell.

She just needed something to set her alight again.

"Ye can't insult me like that." he continued with effort, "Who am I?"

"You're Captain Jack Sparrow." she stated again, this time with less aggressiveness, but still with a flicker of that romantic hope she had so boldly shown him just before.

Always with the Captain. How very fond he was of her for that.

"An' what am I famous for, luv?"  
"Escaping seven agents... Nassau Port, not even a single shot. And - I heard you traded Chinese silks for sword lessons, from an Italian master." she mumbled, resting her cheek slightly more comfortably against his collar, "Is that true?"

"So you've read about me." he beamed, tightening his grip subtly around her small waist.  
"Oh yes, I have."  
"And you liked what you read?"  
"Very much so."

"And what would you say if you read that I'd spend three days - how did you put it? - lying on a beach, drinking rum - back in your boring old Governor's house?"  
"I would say... that you were a ludicrous man, as well as an extraordinary one."

"And would you say, luv, that I have never gotten out of a situation safe and soundly?"  
"Well... no. Because you're here."  
"Indeed I am here. And so are you."

"So what are we really going to do, Jack?"  
She gently squeezed the back of his neck with her soft, thin hand.  
He liked that. Very much.

"We're going to do what I always do. Wait for Fate to drop us a line, darling. And use a dash of cunning while we're at it."  
"You're trying to talk yourself out of this. It can't all be like that, you know. All talk."  
"Of course it can! I'll talk us right off this spit of land and across the ocean, if I have to. But I won't have to, Lizzie, luv. We'll think of something."

**Music Stops.**

He led her to the other side of the island, where there was more shade beneath the trees, and directed her to sit down with her rum bottle.  
He kept a safe distance, in case she decided to draw him back in with that delicious, feminine touch she had on her hands.

He didn't know why, though. If they were going to be here indefinitely, there was bound to be some advantage-taking sooner or later. At least, that was what his gut and his manhood were telling him.  
His head and his heart, however...

She was a good lass. She was a refined, sprightly, beautiful, sophisticated girl.  
He _wanted _to steer clear. Or at least, until she asked him to come closer.  
Then, he didn't think he would be able to resist for any given amount of time.

Except that she would never ask.  
Why would she?

"I'm hungry, Jack." she muttered as he took the cork off his own bottle and spat it out, in the most pirately manner possible.  
Why was he acting like such a vagabond? Showing off his ruddy filthiness.

Because he was one. Because he _was_ filthy, and low.  
_To draw the line between them. To make sure he didn't build himself up for a mighty fall._

Vulnerability. The very word, not even formed properly in his mind - just the vague sense of it - sent him shuddering.  
If he was going to die here, he was going to die with the dignity of a man rejecting, not rejected. Jack Sparrow didn't have feelings.  
Captain Jack Sparrow had only riches and power on his mind.

So why did he feel flushed and exposed when she looked up at him so dependently?  
It made him angry, but he hid even that.  
Anger would only suggest that he cared. And he didn't.

_So why was he using silly pet names like Luv and Darling at the end of every sentence?  
Foolish blighter._

"Well, we'll soon see to that." he winked, taking a deep swig and immediately feeling a thousand times better.  
Though he had managed to talk Elizabeth out of panic, it certainly hadn't worked its charms on himself.  
The plan was now only to drink himself into oblivion, and either die overnight, or deal with everything else once he had a comfortably blurry headache.

"I can't just drink this." she protested as he motioned for her to do the same, "Isn't there any fruit around here?"  
They both looked up, and noticed the inevitable bunch of coconuts hanging a good twenty feet above their heads.

Jack gave Elizabeth a grudging look, then sighed in resignation.  
"Out of the way, Lizzie. An' take the rum, I don't want it smashed."

Elizabeth paused before shifting.  
What had he just called her?  
It was such a degradation, such a step below her real name. Had no elegance, no refinement.  
It was such a common-sounding name.  
But she liked it.

_Pirate Lizzie.  
First Mate, Lizzie Swann._

It suited her new swashbuckling life a good sight more than _Elizabeth_.

Jack fluttered his hands at her, and she realised she'd been looking distantly at his left shoulder for the past few seconds, motionless.  
"Move." he reiterated helpfully, just in case she hadn't gotten it the first time.

Five minutes later, he was still gripping the tree's trunk between his hands, trying to disturb it enough to bring some of its precious food down.  
"Harder!" Elizabeth cheered from a safe distance, her bonny face lit up with temporary amusement.  
He had better succeed, and soon, before the look transformed back into a grumpy scowl again.

"Hang in there, luv." he called back as an idea pounced on him.  
He ran straight through the sparse trees to their original landing spot, and picked up the coil of blasted rope.

It was just as he was beginning to ascend the trunk, using the rope in an outstandingly traditional Chinese fashion (for those readers who get the Mulan reference), when three fat coconuts finally decided to drop from their precarious places.

The first missed Jack by inches, the second fell clear - but the third hit him square on the forehead. Lucky he was only a few feet off the ground, because he immediately let go and fell flat on his back, emitting a resounding "Bugger."

Elizabeth, at first shrieking slightly with shock, and now breathless for laughter, rushed to his side and knelt over him.

**'The Kite'.**

"Jack? Are you alright?"  
"Uurrgghh." he grunted, hands waving slightly at his sides.  
He looked like an overturned tortoise. Elizabeth snickered despite herself.

He squinted up at her infinitely concerned expression; lips softly pouting in expectation of a more definitive answer, eyebrows slanting (for once) away from one another, above her sweet titillating eyes.  
Her feather-soft strands of hair were tickling his rugged cheek in a very sensory manner.

He snorted to himself in mischievous amusement, then let his eyelids slide shut, moaning slightly in mock agony.

"Ouch." he whined.  
"Does it hurt much? Are you concussed?"

"I don't know." he said - very bravely - wincing with exaggeration as she touched his head with her fingertips.  
Those fingertips... he had warned himself about that delicious feminine touch.

"I'm sorry. It's all my fault." she tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't, rocking with silent giggles.

"My comfort matters not." he asserted dramatically, still with his eyes shut, basking in the glory of her lingering caress across his brow, "For the sake of fair lady's stomach."  
"Your stomach, too." she bantered, poking him playfully in the torso.

"Ouuuwwww."  
"Does it actually hurt that badly, or are you trying to convince me to fawn all over you?"  
"Uuuhhhhh."

"Jack. Answer the question. Are you just trying to sap some sympathy?"

"Is it working?" he asked, reopening his eyes to smile at her mockingly.

Her hand snatched away from his face as quick as you could say 'bugger'.

She sighed: one of her sighs that came with a tut, that said 'I knew it', and 'You charming man, I want you to grab me by my scanty clothing and kiss me to death', all in one instant.

At least, he thought that was what her sigh meant.  
And if _he_ thought so, it was probably right.

Teasing himself was so much more enjoyable than it should be...

**Music Fades Out.**

"So now we need to get these open." she mused softly, picking up a coconut, and handling it in much the same way Jack would like his head to be handled on her lap.  
Instead of receiving such treatment, he had sand nearly kicked in his face as she rose to her feet, and set off along the shore looking for something to bash the fruit against.

They sat around the sharp, protruding rock that had become their food-opening tool, and ate in silence. Elizabeth held up the brown shell above her face, and let its translucent white milk trickle into her mouth, with the pleasure of luxury so plain on her face, it was becoming hard for Jack not to see the sexual metaphor that he wanted so much to observe.

He chuckled to himself quietly, chewing on a piece, and feeling rather glad about her clever idea to find food. He would feel much better on a full stomach.  
Except there wasn't all that much to eat.

Elizabeth's belly growled in agreement. She looked down at her empty husk, and then gazed at him sadly.  
Secretly, they both knew that they were having the same idea.  
And that he was probably the one who would have to carry it out.

He tried to convince himself that he was going to attempt this potential travesty for his sake, as much as for her's.

It could all go awfully pear-shaped and embarrassing if he failed.

"Look." he murmured, touching her knee briefly, "You go collect some wood for a fire, luv. I'll be in the shallows. With me blade. If I don't come back with anything good... you can't hate me. Agreed?"

"Oh, Jack. You would?" her dark eyes sparkled in the orange light of the gathering dusk.  
"Don't be getting all sentimental on me, just do it." he heaved himself to his feet, and strode off in search of his sword and pistol.

Neither of them turned to look back at one other, but both had wide smirks fixed on their faces.


	13. Chapter 13

Playlist: 'The Eagles' from Lord of the Rings, Return of the King.

'At Wit's End' from At World's End.

And 'Eleanor' from Return of the King.

These songs come one straight after the other, no breaks, so be ready for quick changeovers! If only I could compose a soundtrack myself so it would all fade in nicely...

* * *

I really hope you're all enjoying the island so far, mateys! I certainly am. It's all a little bit frisky and silly at the moment, but don't worry, here come the bigger things.

* * *

**13**

_Oh, she had a dark an' rollin' eye  
An' her hair hung down in ring-a-lets  
She was a nice gal, a decent gal  
But one of the rakish kind!  
_

* * *

Elizabeth poured a slosh of rum onto her tower of small sticks, and began to strike the flint together, holding the tinder close to it, like Jack had told her.

When he had produced the small box, with the key ingredients that they needed most, from the rum cellar, and winked at her conspirationally, she had almost laughed at him.

As if it could be that easy. He did seem to conjure up favourable(ish) circumstances just by magic, just by needing help to come along.

Five attempts later, the tinder sparked, finally, as she blew on it, and caught the rum soaked sticks eagerly as it flared up.  
"Jack! We've got fire!"

He waved a hand to acknowledge her, but otherwise kept his eyes on the water he was knee deep in. She got the feeling he was actually on the hunt now.

Was it absolutely necessary that he took his boots, waistcoat and shirt off for fishing?

She sat back on the sand, taking care of the flames, throwing more and more branches and sticks on them as they grew.  
Then she took another sip of rum, her sixth, since they had started on this mad venture to find a fish.

It was warm, like the air. Warm, sharp, strong, tasting faintly of burnt caramel.  
Difficult to get down her throat if she was perfectly honest. But better than nothing.

And it made her horribly tense shoulders slacken up a little. She felt she could almost enjoy herself, if she drank a bit more, and imagined that this was a voluntary holiday.

Just an ordinary, voluntary holiday on a breeze-blown beach, with her male..._ companion_, out hunting to bring her back a prize, and the luxury of alcohol that she didn't usually get back home.

_Home_. She missed it quite terribly. Her dear father, who was waiting for her return. Out looking for her, more likely.

Out looking for her.  
_Out looking for her._

... Of course he was. He would be looking for any sign of her whereabouts, any glimmer of hope on the horizon, trusting her to send him a signal if she could.

She gazed at the pile of blazing branches, as she threw another one on top.  
She thought of the rum she had just splashed onto it to get it going.  
And how much more there was, in that cellar.

**'The Eagles'.**

Suddenly, she felt weak. So limp, with relief, with the overwhelming sense of safety.  
There was a way out after all. If the rumrunners wouldn't rescue them, why, her father would.

Her loving, dependable parent.

She looked at the darkening sky, and realised it was no use to set a huge flame going now. They wouldn't see it at night.

Tomorrow morning. First thing. She would rescue them, and she and Jack would miraculously be free, so suddenly, and -

Jack.  
Of course he would never be free, once aboard a law-abiding vessel, under James' eyes.  
She would be sending him back to the cell. Possibly the gallows, for his defiant escape.

They would have to cross that bridge when they came to it.  
For now, it was a choice between having Jack's freedom or Jack's death on her hands. And her own. She knew which one he would prefer, as much as she.

She tried not to watch him.

He was so clean from his swim... the burnished skin of his arms, chest and back glimmered with droplets of water, in the ever-more beautiful sunset that graced the horizon.

He looked much more real without his tricorn hat. Less legendary.  
Touchable.

******'At Wit's End'.**

He was as rigidly still as a panther, blade hovering inches above the water, pitch black eyes riveted on his target, brows pushed together in concentration.

He was sombrely serious, dangerous and masculine, and perfect.

From the dark red smudge of his bandanna, trailing down his flow of dreadlocks to the dull white scars on his curved back, to the slanting lines where his hips began, and were immediately covered by the waistline of his breeches.  
Quite simply perfect. He was so - desirable.

She snorted derisively at herself. She sounded like something out of a French Romance.  
She'd been reading too much.

She was generally too light-headed and dreamy. The result of so many gentle days, having nothing else to do but dream, and romanticise this 'exciting life of a pirate'.

Suddenly, in one swift motion, his sword-arm came hurtling down into the rippling surf, the muscles of his shoulders stretching and tensing, and for a second the whole world was perfectly motionless, waiting to see if he had won his kill.

******'Eleanor'.**

He lifted his weapon, and from it dangled a large creature, still flailing slightly.

He turned to grin at her, sharing his joy of success, and suddenly he wasn't a dark, beautiful stranger any more, but a cocky, casual criminal.

Same old Sparrow.

His beaming face was endearing, however. She couldn't deny the surge of satisfaction that washed over her like a tide, as he made his way ungainly back to shore, splashing over the white horses with that funny walk of his.

At last, a decent meal.  
It surprised Elizabeth how much the thought of food meant to her right now.

The simple things in life.

Like coconuts, warm beaches, roasted fish, and a pirate for company.


	14. Chapter 14

Author's Note: Jack's first sentence is an adapted quote from the historical pirate that he is based on, Bartholomew Roberts. Apparently he was also an eloquent kinda guy, as well as a dangerous criminal. Sadly, he wasn't half so nice as Jack. Then again, Jack is a Disney character, so it's to be expected.

* * *

This is another playlist that changes quickly so be ready with the songs!

'Strength and Honour' from Gladiator.

'Neverland - Minor Piano Variation' from Finding Neverland.

'This Is Neverland' from Finding Neverland.

* * *

**14**

_Now let every man toss of a full bumper_  
_And let every man toss off a full bowl_  
_And we'll drink and be merry and drown melancholy_  
_Singing, here's good health to all true-hearted souls_

* * *

"In an honest service, there are thin victuals, low wages and hard labour. But in _this_ - being a so called scallywag - there is plenty, satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power..." Jack interrupted himself by knocking back another mouthful of rum. "No, luv. A merry life and a short one is my motto."

"You're untameable, Jack. You really are." Elizabeth sighed, picking at the last morsels of fish absent-mindedly.  
He grinned and gave her a cheeky wink from where he sat, quite close to her.

"Have some more." he tipped the bottle she was holding against her mouth.  
"Are you trying to seduce me through inebriation, Jack? You know it won't work."  
"Not at all, darling. Why on earth would you think so badly of me?"

"William said that being a pirate makes one automatically a womaniser."  
"The scoundrel!" he mocked, making sure she really did drink some, "I'm sure he would be thrilled to see us right now, sitting so civilised, sharing a sophisticated meal over superfluous conversation. Not even touching at all."

"Well. I think he's got more important things on his mind at the moment."  
Elizabeth's gut clenched. "He's all alone, with those pirates, Jack. What if they hurt him?"

"Well, they spared you, Lizzie."  
"They were talking about spilling every last drop from me just as I was leaving."  
"Without me."

**'Strength and Honour'.**

"Yes. Not by choice." she touched his arm, only briefly.

It still sent pleasurable shivers up his spine.

She pondered seriously for a moment, and then turned to him, looking determinedly at his boots.  
"Jack." she breathed, "I think I've figured out how to get away from here."

He raised an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth, cocking his head to one side.  
"Are ye speaking metaphorically? If yer thinking along the same lines as I, I can assure ye, there be no need to give yerself up so quickly. I quite enjoy a chase."

She slapped him only half-playfully on the cheek.

"For goodness' sakes. I'm being serious."  
"Seriously serious?"  
"Exactly that."  
"How? What great plan could you have come up with that I haven't yet?"

"Charmingly humble as always, Captain. It occurred to me, my father - the navy - well, they'll be out looking for me. At sea. And if we can send up a large enough signal, then perhaps we stand a chance of getting their attention. It's just the kind of thing they'll be on the alert for."

His facial expression went through several different phases.  
She knew that he was thinking all the same things she had been contemplating, as she'd watched him hunting in the surf, and her heart twisted for him.

"The royal navy, you say." he echoed.  
"Yes, Jack. And I _have_ thought about all that, but... it would be so much easier to get away from the navy than this island, wouldn't it?"  
"Aye. That it would. Now that I know the dog's ruddy name."  
"I know it's a risk. But it's better than this."

"I don't know about that, luv." he surreptitiously placed one arm behind her as he leant backwards, "I feel that we're having a rather jolly time of it at the moment, don't you? Living a bit of the dream, as it were. I can think of a few who'd be rather jealous of our current... activities."  
"Now that we're not starving, and the sunset is so beautiful, yes." she agreed teasingly.

It was better to tease than to be sombre. He was teaching her that, well enough.

**'Neverland'.**

"I was starting to think myself, about not telling you we had an escape route, until a few days' time..." she admitted, with more play than honesty in her voice. Her eyes glimmered mischieviously, and then died out, "But we have to save Will. If we don't... well, we may as well stay here forever and starve ourselves. I'd rather - he's my friend, Jack. We have to try."

"I never said we shouldn't. You seem to be forgetting I also have a ship to rescue."  
"Always the industrious man."  
"Of course."

"So, I've read about you." Elizabeth ventured, leaning very softly against Jack's arm that was still spread out behind her, "But of course I don't know the whole story."  
"Are you giving me an excuse to blather and gloat my black guts out to you, Miss Swann? I assure you, I am an admirably arrogant sort of fellow when it comes to my life stories." he warned in a well-practised snooty accent.

"I want to hear everything."  
"It's honestly all quite boring."  
"To you, perhaps."

Jack sighed, and felt a genuine twinge occurring in his - place of feelings.  
This girl was hitting all the right notes with him at the moment. Always. She always said the best bleedin' things.  
She was the big fat 'X' on his map, and if he opened his compass right now, he knew where it would be pointing.

Maybe he should use that as a chat-up line on her someday.  
Nobody could dispute that it would be an outstandingly unique wooing process.

"Fine then. But you mustn't interrupt or ask stupid questions. I _will _get angry."  
"I promise."  
"Good. Where to start..."  
"Where were you born?"  
"I said -"  
"It's not a stupid question. And you hadn't even started yet, so I haven't interrupted." she shot back.

"Blimey, alright. So... I was born on a ship - me dad's ship - in a typhoon."  
"What?"  
"That was both interruption _and _a stupid question."

She looked at him innocently, even fluttering her eyelashes a little.

"Apparently my mother hated me even before I was out. Who wants to give birth in a storm, an' all that. She had a rough time of it. Dad was Pirate Lord of Madagascar back then. Lots of fun. Spent our time around the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Mum was Indian. Very beautiful. Not very close to us, though. I ran away at about twelve, founded me first tiny crew. Played at pillaging for days on end. Sunny days, all of 'em."

"You're telling me you were _born_ a pirate, _raised_ on a pirate ship, and ran away, to be a _pirate_?"  
"Would you have expected anything less, luv?"  
"I suppose not."

"I was a wholeheartedly law-abiding citizen at one point, you'll be very surprised to hear."  
"What?"  
"Aye. I went through a - peculiar phase - in which I worried about me future prospects. An awful lot. Got mixed up in the Trading Company." he shuddered even to say the name, "That didn't last all so long."  
"Why?"  
"Well, it was all lar-de-dar an' dandy until... they pushed me a mite too far, as it were."

He had been expecting a 'How' from her, actually rather enjoying her eager input, but it seemed she had decided to behave. There was an awkward pause, in which he noticed his arm was going numb from them both leaning on it. He withdrew it - sensing her sitting up straight again, and hoping she was as disappointed as he thought she was.

Then he turned so their shoulders were pressing together, and they leaned unanimously on each other in a friendly-like way, their heads comfortably close enough to talk in a low, intimate tone.

**'This Is Neverland'.**

"They tried to put a load of sorry souls onto my ship, to be taken across the sea and enslaved." he paused a moment, "You don't happen to have any African servants, do you?"  
"Never. Father didn't agree with it, from the start."  
"Ah. Well, good. So as I don't have to hate ye." he muttered through slightly clenched teeth.

"Tell me."  
His face had lost all expression. He was looking into the smoldering fire, with something incomprehensible burning in his own orbs - the flames mirrored, flickering, in his black irises.  
"It's not something you as can really tell about, Lizzie... They were manacled. Thin as beggars. Nothing in their eyes. An' that's all I can say."

He flinched, before realising the new experience he was undergoing was the touch of her hand on his.  
"What did you do?"  
"I did my duty."

She looked crestfallen for a second, until she heard his next sentence, chasing after the last, with deep-toned integrity.

"I did my solemn duty as a human being, and took the blighters back to where they belonged, and set them all on their feet and off home again."  
"Oh, Jack."  
"That was where I ran into a spot of bother, with the..."

His gaze trailed down to rest on his branded arm for a second.  
She moved her hand from his to rest on his scarred wrist. Lifted it up gently, between both soft, feminine hands, and inspected it.

"What did they do to you?"  
"Well, firstly they sunk me ship. Me darling _Wicked Wench_."  
"You had another ship?"  
"Same ship, but we'll get to that later."

When it was 'later', when they had gotten past all the distressing descriptions of prisons and branding and dangerous escape, and Jack had just related his desperate, universal plea for his ship back, in exchange for anything, for his soul - as Davy Jones rose up from the depths in their two imaginations - Elizabeth shook her head sadly.

"Jack. Are you telling me the truth?"  
"Aye."  
"Davy Jones came to claim your soul in exchange for your ship being raised from the sea?"  
"Haven't you seen enough walking skeletons yet, missy?"

"I don't know." she smiled hesitantly, "And - when exactly is Davy Jones expecting this soul of yours to be paid to him, if you aren't fibbing after all?"  
"Ah. Mum's the word on that one, luv."

"If you won't tell me then I won't believe you."  
"Go ahead."  
"Fine. I renounce every word of that nonsense." she said, just to spite him.

The truth was, she felt concerned.  
And she hoped if there was a bartered soul involved in all this, it wasn't going to be taken any time in the near future.


	15. Chapter 15

****Playlist: 'The Stairs' from Finding Neverland, and 'Eptesicus' and 'Corynorhinus' from Batman Begins.

* * *

**15**

_Old Stormy has heard an angel call_  
_To my way hey, storm along John_  
_So sing his dirge now, one and all_  
_To my aye, aye, aye, Mister Storm-along._

* * *

**'The Stairs'.**

"But enough about meself, as interesting as it all may be." Jack grinned a wide golden grin and nudged her with the shoulder she was leaning on, "Ye must 'ave a story too."

"Not much of one, I'm afraid."  
"Come, now. I know nothing of life in grandeous abodes, with... rules." he shuddered dramatically, "I at least 'ave a certain... _curiosity_."

"Well, if you're sure... I was born in England. Of course. I'm told I was an absolute nightmare until I turned six. Wouldn't let anybody near me for anything, except my mother. Her attempts to turn me into a proper lady were beginning to reap the benefits, by the time I was twelve. I was even beginning to enjoy wearing the dresses, and I'd take the odd princess story instead of a pirate tale at night. Then she passed away, and I suppose I quietened down, and began to give father a chance. He was so marvellous. He never let me see how sad he was. But we moved to Jamaica less than a year later; he was appointed by King George, naturally."

She seemed quietened now, as she sat next to Jack on the sand, bending her neck slightly to touch his hair with her cheek.  
Very quiet, in the way she sat hunched into him, and looked at the ground with unmoving eyes.  
Without any hint of a sordid thought in his head, he gently placed his arm around her shoulders.

"And on our way, we came across a shipwreck, and I saw the _Black Pearl _sailing away into the fog. And I spotted Will in the water. And took his medallion, in case James saw..."

She trailed off, apparently leaving the very dull rest to Jack's imagination. There was a long pause in which she sat motionlessly against him, apparently lost in her memories.

He took the chance, now that he was over his genuine stirrings of sympathy, to enjoy the feel of her breath so close to his... the warmth of her body within his casual embrace, the dirtied folds of her chemise spread out around her. The flickering of the fire turning her skin to the colour of honey, and her hand that still rested near to his own.

**Music Fades Out.**

So softly at first he couldn't make out the words, she began to sing to herself.  
It was a tune he knew well.

"... _We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot, drink up, me hearties, yo ho.  
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot, drink up me 'earties, yo ho_."

Obviously she had been downing more rum than he'd thought during their rambling conversation. He took another long draught himself, and joined in with gusto - not one for singing quietly, not he.

"_Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me! We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack, drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!_" they sang in (sort of) unison.

They broke away from one another to sing in a more lively, gesturative manner - facing one another, each gladly taking in the sight of the other's beaming expression, waving their bottles around, taking it in turns to go solo for a line while one took a large swig.

Jack suddenly staggered to his feet - he really felt the impact of the alcohol when he actually had to use his balance - and held out a hand to Elizabeth, as they sang louder and louder, their voices blowing the trees overhead and reaching up to the billion stars above.

"_Maraud and embezzle, and even high-jack, drink up, me 'earties, yo ho! _What are you doing?" she shouted at him through her laughter.  
"If yer gonna sing, luv, ye 'ave to dance!" he roared like the roar of their bonfire.

She grabbed his hand and allowed herself to be hauled up, also swaying rather heavily. He linked their right arms together and swung her about in a mad barn dance, "_Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me! We kindle and char, inflame and ignite, drink up me 'earties -" _they intoned, with an emphasis of double meaning upon those words, 'inflame and ignite' - or at least for Jack, anyway.

He caught her eye properly as they whirled, dizzy stars in a world of starlight, and wondered if the rosy blush in her cheek was from the rum.

"_We burn up the city, we're really a fright, drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!_"

He let her go and she went cavorting off with the momentum, skipping around to the other side of the fire and back again in a wide, wobbly circle.

He followed her lead, frolicking in the other direction so their paths crossed every time they rounded the flames. The fine beverage sloshed in their bottles.

He watched her every movement, over and around the fire. The way her chemise swished and billowed in the night air, the way her hair flowed so effortlessly.

This was the Lizzie he had imagined, all the way back when they were en route to the Isle de Muerte. He'd known she had it in her.  
He'd known she'd made a ruddy good pirate. All she needed was a man to show her what freedoms she could achieve.

"_We're rascals, scoundrels, villans and knaves, drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!  
We're devils and black sheep, and really bad eggs! Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!  
Yo ho, yo ho! A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR ME!_"

"I LOVE THIS SONG!" Jack crowed.

They grabbed hold of one another and spun again, before falling in a rather conveniently-placed heap where his head lay on her collar.

"Really bad eggs!" he echoed, holding his drink aloft.  
"Black sheep." she agreed, clinking her bottle against his.  
"When I get the Pearl back," he said with real confidence, lifting his head to talk into her face, "I'm gonna teach it to the whole crew, and we'll sing it all the time!"

She smiled down at him, twirling one of his dreadlocks around her finger.

"And you will be positively the most fearsome pirate in the Spanish Main." she teased in melodramatic tones, as she tickled his nose with his hair.  
He grabbed a lock of her own golden curls and shoved it in her face, gently pushing her over backwards. She squeaked in playful protest.

He sat himself upright and linked his arms around his knees.  
"Not just the Spanish Main, Liz. The entire ocean. The entire world!" he smiled mischeviously down at her, "Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is."

"You're drunk." she accused, sitting up herself and grinning wryly.

"Nonono, listen -" he pulled her towards him and gestured out across the dark ocean before them, drawing her attention to the magnitute of what he was trying to say, "it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship _needs_. But what a ship is - what the Black Pearl _really is _- is freedom."

He said the last part in an almost-whisper, eyes boring into the side of her head as she gazed out at this _freedom _wistfully, all traces of humour gone.  
He saw that he'd touched her, and felt satisfied.

"It sounds wonderful." she muttered.

Why did she look so bloody upset if it was wonderful?  
Complete mysteries... Complete. Mysteries.

**'Eptesicus'.**

"Wha's got ye in a fluster, luv?" he asked, still perilously close to her, snaking an arm slyly around her waist. He was almost surprised when she didn't shrug him off.  
Instead, she turned to look at him full on.

He started slightly, when he noticed the rivulets of tears trickling folornly down her rosy cheeks. She had caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling.  
Her eyes were like two perfect, dark wells of water, glassy and full, slightly narrowed in her silent agony.

She was painfully beautiful.

"Ey!" he whispered anxiously, moving his arm up instinctively to touch her neck. His other hand dropped the bottle of rum to the sand and rushed to cup her delicate jaw.

She hung in his light embrace, her gorgeous, tragic eyes drilling straight into his own without blinking. It made the moisture from them flow even more freely, and his thumb on her cheek disrupted their path.

"Jack." she said hopelessly, but nothing more came from her full, downturned lips.  
"Lizzie. What's going on? Tell me, tell me now." he demanded gently. He was enunciating more than usual, he could hear it in his voice. He was being as serious as she was.

He realised that he... _felt _for her unidentified pain. He was so engaged, so wrapped up in this insignificant hissy fit she was probably having. But it didn't matter. All that mattered was that she stopped crying, and finally kissed him.

Yes. Kissed him.  
That was what he wanted and he wasn't ashamed to admit it.  
To himself, at least.

"I just -" the words she was about to speak hung too heavy on her heart; she hid her face in her hands, as she bared her teeth and her expression crumpled into genuine, exposed misery.

He threw both arms around her and squeezed her with all the comfort he could muster. It was sheer excruciating affliction to refrain from pressing his lips to her hair.

"_I would just - really like - to come along - with you_..." she managed, her breath hitching with sobs.  
His chest tightened.  
But it felt... warmer... tender.

"The pleasure would be all mine, luv, don't you worry about that."  
"No, Jack, you don't - understand."  
"Wha's there to understand? I get me _Pearl _back, we save the whelp - I mean William - and off we goes, savvy? All the way to the horizon, you an' me, an' me crew, an' me ship."

**'Corynorhinus'.**

Words were splurging out of his mouth, and he never expected that he would be saying this, actually stating this to a woman, any woman. But he was, without even thinking, and he meant every flaming word of it. Part of him was sickened, and rather mortified. But that part was keeping quiet for now. For now, it was all about _her_.

"I wish it could be like that." she sniffed and wiped her eyes, and sat up awkwardly, out of his fierce embrace, "That's why I'm so... I don't know. Disheartened."

_Heartbroken _was more the word for it, he thought.  
She hugged her knees and looked back out to sea, trying to avoid his gaze, evidently embarrassed.  
She was trying to do that strong, independent, courageous young female charade.

How could she be sobbing encircled in his arms one moment, a fragile, broken thing - and now this _barrier _suddenly between them?

_Complete mysteries_, he reminded himself.  
But she had a lot more crying still to do. He could see it written all over her supposedly blank expression.

"What's stopping you?" he nudged her with an elbow, trying to lighten the tone.  
"Oh, you know what!" she retorted impatiently, and visibly regretted her harshness. She looked at him again with pleading eyes, and suddenly the barriers were down again. Tables turned. Cards changed.

It was so bewildering.

"I can't, Jack."  
"Why?"  
"_Because_. I can't be one of you."  
"I think you're already rather close, darling."  
"No, Jack, I'm not. I'm not at all. I wear London fashion, I make social calls, I have a maid. I'm the _Governor's daughter_. Can you imagine what father would say if -"

She broke off, apparently not ready to enter those waters.

"Lizzie." he said with intensity, looking up at her from under his dark eyelids, "Ye can't live a lie all yer life."  
She picked up the rum bottle beside her and took a gigantic swig.  
"Look at ye!" he protested.  
"So what. It's the last chance I'll ever get to drink so much. On a beach, with a real fire. And a real pirate."

"But it doesn't _'ave_ te be."  
"_Yes_, it _does_. What about prospects? What would I do with myself? There's all sorts of hazards, Jack, for a woman like me. Rape, death by the sword, death by hanging, my father's reputation... It's a risk, Jack. It's a great big ugly risk. And I can't take it, I can't."

There was a long, aching silence.  
He stared at her, and she stared anywhere but at him.

"You want this." he stated, making her flinch.  
Other than that, he got no response. Which meant he was as right as he was implying. Which was very, deeply, truly.  
"You want this more than you've ever wanted anything. You've been dreaming of it forever."

"Shut up." she murmured tonelessly.

He grasped her arm and spun her round, to look her square in the eye. He found himself gripping both her shoulders and even shaking her slightly.

"You've got such _spirit_, girl! It's been there ever since you was born, you've got a thousand thousand fights hiding away inside you -" she tried to hit him away and he caught her by the wrists, watching her hands balling up with rage, "- in them fists of your's. Why don't you let a couple loose, eh? Why not try for freedom? It's all you 'ave, in this world, is a little freedom to recompense the rest."

"No, _you _get recompense. _I _get jewels, and mindless trinkets." she spat back bitterly.  
"Ha! So do I, luv. So do I. We're very alike, you an' me."

"I don't want to be like you."  
"Yes, you do. Lying isn't going to help anything."  
"Says Captain Sparrow, who gets his way in all things _honest_."  
"Yes, dearie, but I don't lie to meself, eh?"

Now, that was a lie. Because he had been lying to himself, about her. And now he was lying to her about lying to himself about her.  
Never mind.

**Music Fades Out.**

He finally let her struggling arms free, and she took the opportunity to slap him across the cheek, hard.  
"OW!"  
"It's your own fault."  
"For trying to help ye?" he asked belligerently, "I'm only trying to show ye what ye won't let yerself see, luv. Yer proving it to us right now. Saucy wench! Now stop throwing a fit about the bloody subject and come sit down, an' we'll talk no more of it, if that's what pleases ye."

She seemed to realise that she was standing up, and descended somewhat awkwardly to the sand, a good few feet away from him.

"Now, now, let's not be hurtful." he chided, scooting over and pressing his side up against her's, "I was vastly enjoying our close conversations, before this little shenanigan."  
She pulled a noncommittal face, and stroked his arm once, but that was it.

"I'll go an' put some more wood on the fire, an' when I get back, I expect an apology an' a better attitude, savvy?" he demanded, half-playfully, and got up.


	16. Chapter 16

WARNING: This single chapter is rated M for suggestion of sexy stuff. But no graphic detail!

* * *

Playlist! This is a goodun.

'Earth' from Gladiator.

'Now We Are Free' from Gladiator.

'Elysium' from, you guessed it, Gladiator.

These will all come one after another with no break, so if you have Spotify, queue them.

* * *

16

_Farewell and adieu to you, fine Spanish ladies_  
_Farewell and adieu to you, you ladies of Spain_  
_We've received orders to sail for ol' England_  
_But we hope very soon we shall see you again._

* * *

"Ye know... this is what I really do like about ye, dearie." he mused as he chucked a couple of driftwood pieces into the flames. The salt encrusted on them made it turn blue and turquoise amidst the orange-yellow.

"What's that?"

"Yer fine spirit." satisfied with his work, he came and stood over her, "I loves a girl who knows what she likes. An' you like it your own way. Jus' like me."

She handed him his bottle and he relaxed beside her again, taking a few more mouthfuls for courage.

He couldn't believe what he was about to say, but the alcohol told him it was a good idea, and he trusted alcohol to the ends of the earth.

"Ye know..." he said again, in a slightly more hesitant tone that caught her attention, "I'd always wanted to see ye like this. Dishevelled, I mean. Like one of us. With all ye curls come loose an' without any o' that fine silk on."

He was running his ringed fingers through her long tresses.

His heart thudded and thumped and stuttered in his chest, and his hand quivered slightly.

She was looking at him with a curious half-smile playing across her mouth, and her eyes narrowed sharply. Why couldn't she just look doe-eyed and adoring sometimes?

"I say 'wanted'... I was curious." he backtracked quickly.

"Well." she said with some satisfaction, "I must admit, I did rather hope you would return my favour and be the one to come and rescue me. I genuinely believed you would, for a while. And then I saw you, lying on the ground with Will standing over you, and... I was pleased. As well as horrified, and guilty, and what have you."

That stunned him to the core.

She had been thinking of him all this time as well?

Blimey. Just... blimey.

"I, errr..." this was going to be even more painful if she didn't approve, "I 'ad a certain dream about you, on the voyage over."

"You what?"

"I know, curious, isn't it?"

"Well, what happened?"

"You really want to know?"

"Of course I do. There could be something exciting involved." she whispered thrillingly, obviously intending to keep that line casual and generalised, but utterly failing.

"Alright." Jack gulped, but decided to play it smooth, trying not to get distracted by her heat against his body as she leaned in.

"I was... standing at the entrance of Isle de Muerta. I had some things, in me hands. The medallion, was one. And -" he remembered the second, "I don't remember the second. I'm drifting through these tunnels, like a ghost, until I come to the cave and there you are, all alone. In the middle of all my treasure. Wearing your golden gown, only it's floating around you, and your hair's all loose and floating too. Like you're underwater, or a spirit, or I don't know what."

He chanced to look at her, and realised that she looked doe-eyed and adoring.

He must be doing well.

His trousers were also getting a bit tight though, and he hoped she wouldn't notice.

"Suddenly... I'm standing, right in front of you." he murmured.

And he was right in front of her, and she was here, and he was going crazy. His dream had come to life.

"And your skin was luminous white, and your eyes was black as fiery coals. And I..."

**'Earth'.**

He reached out a tentative hand, and brushed her neck with his palm.

Her eyes closed in soft ecstasy, head tilting back, lips slightly parted as she drew a longing breath.

Oh, God.

"I touched your throat." he managed hoarsely, "And your eyes closed, like you was enjoying it. An' I wanted - to grab your hair and do awful, awful things to you. But I didn't."

He was whispering in the most erotic tones he had ever used, whispering right into her ear, their bodies crackling with mutual electricity, "And..."

He took his palm from her neck and traced with his fingers down her collar to those white, round, neat breasts still shown off vividly by her chemise. Just like the dream, he slowly followed one soft semicircle, fingered the rim of the fabric.

She moaned softly, involuntarily.

"An' your dress, it began - to wrap itself around me - like arms." he croaked suggestively.

Sure enough, her delicate limbs brushed his shoulders, encircled his neck.

Her far leg slowly crossed over his body, toes pointed.

A step further than the dream, but he wasn't complaining.

His arms moved with natural memory to her waist, pulling her into him.

"And..." he said, finally, eyes riveted on her voloptuous, parted pink lips, those tantalising beauties, as they moved closer and closer.

Their mouths were an inch apart. He had closed his eyes; he could feel her breath on his face, smell the sweet alcohol, he could feel her angelic visage just there, just across the gap between them.

His brain felt like it was swelling and heating, his mind was blurred and tingling with the sensation.

This was all there was. The whole world was made up of this one moment.

And then it happened. Their lips touched more softly than the brush of feathers, and they both took great, delicious breaths deep into their lungs, and became light-headed, and clutched one another a little tighter with a sudden fury.

The kiss lingered, lingered for so long.

And then he gently pulled away.

His face was burning.

"And then -" he blathered, too quickly and too high-pitched to sound casual like he so wanted to, eyes glued to the ground, "There was this bloody great light that sort of came and swept everything away, and then I woke -"

**'Now We Are Free'.**

She grabbed the back of his neck with both hands and her mouth crashed down on his again, scorching his lips, closing them together with hers and then opening again in unison, so he could feel the moisture of her mouth and almost taste it too.

Her fists grasping the back of his shirt desperately.

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed again, each movement like a tidal wave against his mouth, an explosion of ecstasy in his chest and his shoulders and his loins.

Her tongue met his suddenly, unanimously, in the middle, and twirled around it with relish, sending shocks of high voltage through every nerve.

It was so delicious.

He gently rolled her underneath him.

For some minutes he leaned his elbows in the sand and just kept on kissing her, sometimes forcefully, sometimes as gently as if she were a ghost, trying to imprint every part and aspect of her mouth, her tongue, her way of kissing into his brain like a brand, to commit it to memory. She was so good at it.

Then, very tentatively, he began to hitch up the skirts of her petticoat.

"Jack!"

She said it very sharply. He once again raised his eyes to her face, and her expression made his stomach turn over and his heart twinge.

She looked terrified. Her eyes were so wide, like a startled mare's. Her chest rose and fell at an alarming rate.

He wanted so much - needed - to hush her, to tell her it was all fine and that she was safe with him, that the pull was too strong now, that there was no going back from this.

But it wasn't what was best for her.

It was too soon. Far too soon. And if she was really serious about going back to her life... he knew the consequences of her future husband discovering that her treasures had already been rifled. There would be no prospects for her. She'd be a lowlife whore, the shame of her family.

He needed so badly to make daring, incomprehensibly sweet love to her.

But he knew, in that moment, that he shouldn't.

And that meant it was never going to happen.

He sighed, one drawn-out, tragic, insanely frustrated sigh.

Then he slowly retreated, leaning down to give her a single earnest kiss on those bonny lips, before gently, with dignity and respect, replacing the fabric of her garment.

Then he lifted himself off her, spun around to plant his backside on the sand next to her, and pulled her head onto his chest as he lay back.

He cradled her there for a few minutes, telling himself he was going to heaven for this, stroking her hair as comfortingly as he could.

"Sorry, luv." he said slowly, tenderly.

"Don't." she replied in the same way, "It's not your fault, Jack. I can't believe you stopped."

"Neither can I."

"I'm proud of you."

"Well, at least that's something."

"It's just that -"

"Darling, you don't have to explain one miniscule point of your very sensible decision to me."

"... Thank you."

"Come and kiss me. I won't bite this time. Promise." he requested huskily.

She complied with all the eagerness in the world, proving that there wasn't anything awkward between them after all.

Her kisses were like drops of golden water, delicate, fresh, fleeting, just on the surface of his hungry lips.

They were... doting kisses.

Then, quite abruptly, she moved away, and suddenly his neck was the centre of her mouth's attention. Then his collar bones, then the fabric of his shirt.

"What's this?" he asked, a smirk altering his voice.

"I figured... I might be able to relieve you some other way."

"You. Are a diamond." he growled with pleasure, smugly placing his hands behind his head, and shifting his gaze down to her poised expression, to watch her.

"I've never done this before."

"Beginners usually have more interesting techniques. I'll let you know if you're going wrong." he chuckled, and then let out an involuntary "OH! Knights of Columbus!"


	17. Chapter 17

17

_When I was a youngster I sail'd with the rest  
__On a Liverpool packet bound out to the west  
__We anchored a day in the harbour o' Cork  
__Then put out for the sea for the port o' New York._

* * *

Elizabeth awoke gently to the warmth of sunlight on her face and the lapping tide's constant sounds. She blinked in the Caribbean brightness, and suddenly realised where she was.

She was huddled into Jack's prostrate body, his shoulder under her head, her arm and leg swung lightly across his chest and hips.

His free hand - the one that wasn't wrapped around her - still clutched resolutely onto the neck of his bottle of nothing. All the rum was gone.

She glanced over her shoulder at her own, lying in the sand behind her, also empty.

It was then that she began to realise that she had the beginnings of an awful, awful headache.

They must have been incredibly merry last ni -

Last night.

Oh, God!

She sat up, very suddenly, and put a hand to her heart as she gasped in horror.

Then her eyes shot to Jack's trousers, still with a few buttons left undone.

She didn't. She couldn't have.

But she had. She remembered it all too clearly.

How willing she had been to compensate him for her stubborn virtue.

How he had allowed her to kiss him one last time, before putting his head back in the sand and falling straight to sleep, shattered, and very very drunk.

She could hardly believe that she was still here. She half-expected the clouds to open up, and a condemning voice of thunder to thrust itself accusingly at her, with threats of eternal damnation.

She couldn't believe it. She actually couldn't believe that she had it in her.

Jack had been right.

She couldn't be anything other than a pirate at heart, if she had allowed such atrocious things to happen between them, on such short acquaintance, in such improper circumstances.

But she trusted him. He was a hero, an unlikely one, but still. Her hero.

If he told her to take a running jump off a cliff... she was so gullible. Despicably so.

But then, it didn't disgust her. It should have repulsed her, the thought of all that _stuff_, out of wedlock, on a beach in the middle of nowhere, with a wanted criminal no less - a scruffy, morally misguided nobody.

Instead, the thought uplifted her. She had known real freedom, to go to whatever extremes she had felt like on a whim, on the mad impulse of a silly story about a dream. To feel craved, lusted after, in an honest, rugged way, without all of those prim-and-proper intervals that could only be described as the Middle Man of erotic wooing. A polite delay.

And she had come out on top in all aspects.

She was a virgin. A cold, hard fact, one that made her feel secure enough to excuse herself.

Nobody would ever know. But she had beaten them. She had swindled them all.

With a man she had admired since she was just ten. A man she had never imagined would be so attractive as well as wicked.

He began to stir, making faintly disgruntled noises, and she lowered herself to the ground again, placing her chin on his chest to watch him waking up.

She was acting like a lover.

Which she wasn't.

He was the most angelic thing she had ever seen, when he frowned slightly in his sleep, and then slowly blinked his eyes open, gazing up at the ethereal azure sky.

Then he glanced down at her, obviously in as rough a condition as she was, from the length of time he took to focus properly.

"Alright." he said bluntly.

"Hello." she replied, trying not to smile at him.

She wondered if he remembered.

He reached down to secure his trousers, and it was obvious that he did.

"You did have some wonderful techniques." he smirked vaguely at her as he tried to sit up, making her move away.

She winced. It was bad enough without him bringing it up so harshly. Now she really felt like a low strumpet.

Well, if that was what he thought she was, he was going to find out how mistaken he was.

She sat up properly and turned her back on him, pretending to look out at the ocean.

It was going to have to be all ignorance and cold shoulders, if it was the only way to preserve herself now.

"We have to set up the signal as soon as possible." she said blankly.

His fingers curled softly around her upper arms, and his mouth found the most sensitive, pleasure-inducing spot on her shoulder blade. His kiss was so tender.

"Whatever you say, luv."

His voice had an underlying tone of apology. As though he were talking to - well - more than just a one-night encounter.

She couldn't help it. His fingers held her softly, like some precious thing.

He must understand her, or he wouldn't be treating her like this.

Surely?

"Jack -"

"Aye." one arm discreetly wound around her shoulders, thumb caressing her throat. His chest pressed against her back.

It was quite an intimidating gesture, and for a moment she tilted her head back, feeling like a kind of hostage.

The last time he'd been anywhere near this position, he'd been holding a chain round her neck with a pistol pointed at her head.

She tried to deny the fact that it thrilled her.

"Last night, if you remember... it never happened. Alright?"

"If that's what you want."

He made to take his hand away and leave her to her own space, but she grabbed his wrist, and slowly brought his fingers to her mouth, kissing them one by one.

"That's what I want." she murmured, actions clearly opposing her words.

"Oh." his tone suddenly had a cynical, aggressive edge to it, and he pulled his hand away from her with some force, "I see how it is. Ye'd never admit to consorting with a pirate. And yet here ye are."

"Shut up." she turned to grab the back of his neck and pulled herself in to plant a honey-sweet kiss on his lips. His moustache tickled her slightly.

He broke away, however, and stood up without offering her his hand. He had the strangest expression of aloof disgruntledness, almost vicious, and definitely hiding something else.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, indignant at his disrespectful attitude.

"I think the question that the both of us should be focusing upon here is what the bloody hell are you doing?" he retorted as she rose to her feet.

He was looking her dead in the eye, and his spiteful countenance showed him for the rogue he really was. "I agree that I am well below ye, young missy. I tried me way with the honest life and it didn't work out, I am never going to be a gentleman. But if yer gonna fling yerself at me like that an' not admit it to a soul afterwards, ye can go keelhaul, for all I care. I despise a dishonest woman."

"Jack, this isn't about what bloody social circles you move in!" she argued with exasperation at his injured ego, "The fact remains that I have - engaged in improper behaviour - with somebody I am not only not married to; I am not even courting."

"Well, what do ye call this?" he raised his voice tempestuously, "I wine an' dine ye, I gives ye entertainment, I woo ye to a point of -" he broke off, and sighed. "I took a coconut to the head for ye, Lizzie. I don't do that for any ol' hussy."

She giggled despite herself.

She felt very warmly for him, very suddenly.

He had openly admitted that he considered her as a real person. He respected her.

He wanted to impress her.

And though he was obviously blagging about their courting - pirates didn't court, did they? - the fact that he'd lied about it in itself was sweet.

"I know. And I'm very grateful. But I'm still a wretched whore and I really have to keep this a secret, Jack, so please, don't abandon me like you are. The island's lonely enough."

She knew he'd hearken to those words.

He crossed the space between them and took both her hands gently.

"Ye could never be a whore, luv. Yer too stuck up. Yer just... too ruddy gorgeous to be a prude." he grinned in his mischevious, charming way, and she put her arms around his neck acceptingly.

She felt so awfully guilty.

She was prolonging something that was in no way going to work... and couldn't even be prolonged for much longer, now.

"Right. Firewood. Go." she instructed, putting on her bravest face.


	18. Chapter 18

The constant lack of reviews is not encouraging me to carry on this fiction, guys. If you want chapters, give reviews. Ta.

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Playlist: 'Romeo and Juliet: Balcony Scene' by City of Prague Philharmonic.

* * *

**18**

"The rum?" he looked at her as though she'd just pulled an octopus out of her ear.  
"Yes." she sighed impatiently, "If we're going to make a large enough signal we need all the help we can get."

"But - it's _rum_!" he said, bewildered at her stupidity, "Ye store it! Ye drink it! Ye buy more! Ye don't _burn _it!"  
"Unfortunately we have to."  
"I can't let ye do that."  
"It's happening, Jack. It's happening, because if we don't use rum our signal won't be tall enough and we will die here with no shade and no firewood, and no way out."

He glared at her rebelliously. It was the worst mood she had ever seen him in.  
He felt worse than when they'd been stranded on the island in the first place.

"Look, you don't have to watch. You can keep a bottle, here." she handed him one from the many crates at their feet.

He shook his head solemnly.

"If the rum 'as to go, then I won't stand by an' watch you do it. I 'ave to."  
"Excuse me?"  
"If anyone's going ter burn the rum, it must be me!" he stated again, a little louder, "It's the only way I shall get through this bloody palava."

Elizabeth shrugged, huffed, and set to work with the tinder and flint, unsure of whether she would ever understand the very backwards principles of alcoholic pirates.

* * *

**'Romeo and Juliet: Balcony Scene'.**

The rum was gone, and so was the shade, and they were sat on the shore looking out to sea, side by side. There wasn't much talk. He was still too traumatised.

"I wish I'd kept that bottle." he said glumly.  
"It would hardly help, you getting aboard father's searchparty ship completely drunk."

"Nothing will help me against your bonny navy now, luv. Aside from me own wits."  
"And mine. I'm going to help you, Jack. Don't think I won't."

"An' what about your classy ol' lifestyle, eh? You still sticking with that?"  
"Don't."  
"I told ye before, an' I shall keep telling ye until ye see some sense." he muttered patiently, "I know I've nothing to offer ye, Lizzie. But I'm... _involved_, now. I care about what happens to ye, I care that yer making a mistake. I can't jus' turn meself in, without knowing that yer gonna be alright."

His pitch black eyes were subtly turned towards her.

"Well, I'm fine. Don't you worry about me."  
"Look, you. Yer no picnic sometimes. A spoiled brat, I'd venture ter say."

She shot him a cross look, but he returned it with an even deeper one. It overpowered her glare because she could see that his was much, much more serious.

"... But under that, ye've a strong heart." his dark halos looked infinitely sad for a moment, pitying, beneath his stern exterior, "They've got you, in a whopping great manor of a cage. But still a cage, darling. An' yer going to die, if ye don't break out. Not right away, that may be. Cause yer fierce, like our fire here." he shielded his eyes against the scorching blaze a distance away.

Then he turned his gaze on her again, and even took her by the hand. "S'what I like about ye. But sooner or later, luv, this fire of ours is gonna burn out. An' so will yours, in time."

"Jack." she tried not to show that her eyes were stinging, as she gazed at his boots, "It's not up to you to save me."  
"No, I know. Only ye can do that."

She didn't reply.  
Which meant that she was listening, but she wasn't hearing him.  
Not one bit.

"If I thought ye was going ter turn pirate, I'd fight off this whole navy single handed to make sure it happened. Take yer father home safe an' all." he said darkly, admitting more than he'd like to with that one suggestion.

Elizabeth scoffed, but not at his resolve.  
"Yes, Jack. You'd have me sail my own father home, tell him that I was going to become a criminal, a fugitive of the law, and have to stand in his presence and know what shame I'd caused him." her words dripped with disgust and fear, "He invested too much love and goodness in me for that. I could never sink so low."

"What, as low as me."

She didn't answer, yet again.  
So he stood up, shook the sand off his trousers, gave an enormous huff, and marched off to the other side of the island.

That was when he spotted the white sails on the horizon.


	19. Chapter 19

Playlist: 'Forever Lost (Reprise)' by God Is An Astronaut.

* * *

**19**

They sat side by side in the longboat, solemn and silent, looking away from one another, sharing only the same dark glare.  
Elizabeth trailed a finger in the waves.  
If only mermaids existed, she would have wished for them to take her now, as one of their own, down to the bottomless cool waters amongst shipwrecks and endless reefs. Anything but the future ahead of her, and anything except piracy.

Her father wouldn't be able to complain about her becoming a fish.

It was only when Jack handed her, unexpectedly, to the rope ladder descending the side of the _Dauntless _that she chanced to look him in the face, almost accidentally.

The brief moment of contact created a sharp twinge in his stomach, and her expression reflected a mutual feeling.

He knew she had an awful lot to say that she hadn't said. And that it would probably stay that way.

Because for her, there was no turning away from her predestined path of petticoats and parasols._  
_And for her, words weren't going to do anything.

Jack caught sight of the Governor rushing to greet his Prodigal daughter as she reached the deck.

It was all a flurry of grey curls and turquoise fabric, and she was nearly hidden from sight by his fierce embrace.  
He kept saying her proper name, over and over. _Elizabeth, Elizabeth_.  
It didn't ring right. But at least she was safe. And happy.

Not that that was going to last her much longer.

"Home." Weatherby Swann said simply to the Commadore, who tipped his head in agreement and began to shout orders in his well-groomed voice.

"Home? But we've got to save Will." Lizzie protested with feeling. Her father interrupted her immediately with a resounding "No."

She looked at him, crestfallen and guilty.  
"You're safe now." he reasoned, "We will return to Port Royal immediately, not go gallivanting after pirates!"

"Then we condemn him to death." she accused.  
"The boy's fate is regrettable, but then so was his decision to engage in piracy."

"If I may be so bold," Jack interrupted, not really knowing why he was about to speak up on the whelp's behalf. Hadn't the blaggard left him at the Isle de Muerte to die? - "I did give him a bit of persuasion in the matter - not the best kind, you understand."

His heart sank as he realised that he was saying this to impress _her_, and that admitting to kidnapping William was doing, in fact, the exact opposite.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Sparrow. One more crime to add to the lengthy list. Clap him in irons, gentlemen." Norrington piped up, gesturing to the crew smugly.

"Ye may not want to be doing that, mate." Jack took a couple of steps backwards in a futile attempt to distance himself from the impending brig, "The Pearl was listing near to scuppers after the battle. It's very unlikely she'll be able to make good time. _Think_ about it. The Black Pearl, the last real pirate threat in the Caribbean." he gestured from a safe way away, "How can you pass that up?"

"By remembering that I serve others, Mr. Sparrow, not only myself." came the cold reply.  
Bloody navy toffs. Couldn't sway 'em any way you swung it.

Shouldn't have shown off his (now pitiful-looking) skills in bribery so freely. He was building up a worse and worse image for himself.  
It would be the gallows for sure.

The Commodore looked on as Jack was put deftly into manacles and secured by each arm, by two strapping young soldiers who looked like they meant business.

He then turned away, to ascend the steps and rid himself of this 'pirate scum', as Jack could vividly imagine he would term it.

Lizzie shook free of her father and flew to the foot, clutching the railing.

There was no way her father or James would agree.  
Will's death would hang over them all, for the rest of their lives. And only she would care.

What harsh men chivalry and refinement had bred. To think they had come to this!

Turning tail for the sake of her safety, to abandon a good man, her childhood friend, and conjure up some fleeting excuse that would save them from facing their own cowardice.

**'Forever Lost (Reprise)'.**

But they wouldn't heed to that call, the call of guilt.  
There was only one man she could convince, and there was only one way she could do it.

She stole a glance at Jack, handcuffed and mildly dejected.  
He was going to look an awful lot more distraught in a moment.

She had to put her life back on track.  
She had to get on with her own path, and leave all of this nonsense behind her.

She had to save Will.  
And she couldn't watch Jack's spirit crumble, as he lost his chance to save the _Pearl _yet again.

She would rather see his heart dented by her, than broken by Barbossa's theft.  
She took a tentative breath, lingering on her last moment of real freedom.

_Freedom_. Ironic, how her being rescued by her family had led her into anything but freedom.

She was going to detest herself for this later.

But there was no other way. And it was her duty. To herself, to Will, to Jack.  
Duty couldn't be ignored.

She tried to keep her voice from breaking as she thrust those few words at James, accepting that she could never turn back now, not even to look at what she had lost.  
It was always going to be this way.

"Commodore, I beg you, please do this. For me. As a wedding gift."

A pause that felt like the echo of a drop in time and space itself resounded.  
She tried to draw breath and found that her chest was too tight.

That was it. Her life stolen - from the most unexpected thieves.

"Elizabeth!" her father sounded breathlessly delighted - relieved, even, "Are you accepting the Commodore's proposal?"

_No._ Her entire body and soul screamed out of the darkness.

"I am." she said, blankly, looking only at James, willing herself not to glance anywhere else.

Not at Jack.

She could sense him, just standing there, all sense of wry humour at James' attitude gone from his expression.  
His eyes were like black beams. Boring into the side of her head.

He couldn't quite believe what he had just heard.

"Lizzie." his gruff, quiet voice came involuntarily from his throat.

Elizabeth's gut clenched the second she heard her name - her _real _name - uttered by those unsmiling, angelic lips.  
She already hated herself.

And she couldn't help turning around to gaze at him straight, to confront him with the full force of her own accusing stare.  
This was as much his fault as it was her's.  
He should never have touched her. He should never have taught her to want things that she wasn't allowed to have.

He should never have allowed himself to desire something he couldn't own, either.

His eyes weren't narrowed or shrewdly calculating, as she would have expected them to be. Instead they looked askance at her, wide and slightly unfocused, like a startled stag.  
His lips were slightly parted in his pained confusion, his entire body rigid.

In that moment she almost caved, witnessing his genuine surprise, his honest, open wounds that her words had sliced into him.  
She realised that he cared.  
Not enough to step up. Not enough to draw his pistol and threaten anyone aboard that ship who would stand between them.

Somehow, insanely, she wished that he would do something as recklessly stupid and bold as that.  
She wished that he would take the whole ship hostage. Command the crew to sail them all to the Isle de Muerta under him.

Take her in his arms, let her feel his strength, his ability to rule over her, let her know that she wasn't being given a choice in the matter; that she was pirate, but through his power, not her's.

If only he would force her with his irrefutable, masculine hand.  
If she didn't have to be the one to take the blame for all of her secret, filthy wishes.

She would do it. She would gladly give herself up to him.

But he wasn't going to create a single-handed mutiny for her sake. She had betrayed him.  
He must feel that he was nothing to her.

And he would overcome it. He would push her aside and continue with his life, escape to his infinite freedom and find another _bonny lass _to woo on a rum-soaked beach.

His life would carry on unchangingly without her.  
And she would be left here.

"Lizzie..."

"That's quite enough." Norrington interrupted, suddenly incredibly protective over his fiancée's very name, "Take him to my quarters. He will direct us to the enemy, and then we may dispense of him in the brig."

His_ fiancée._ How did something so disastrous happen in such a fleeting instant?

Jack allowed himself to be led away, never taking his eyes off Lizzie. She looked down at her feet, putting her arms around herself unconsciously to deflect him.

She had been planning this all along.  
It was why she had asked him never to tell.

She had - used him?

With this last, piercing, impossible thought, Jack turned his head away from her, tucked his chin into his chest, and trod with reluctant, heavy feet to the stern quarters.


	20. Chapter 20

Thank you for all the lovely reviews! I feel overjoyed :-)  
Would you guys mind telling me in your next reviews whether you want the playlists to carry on? I've been writing the music in at an average pace of reading, in the hope that everything would sort of fall together. But if you're a quick reader and it isn't working out for you, let me know!

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**20.**

"Here." Weatherby Swann stood in the doorway of a fair-sized tidy cabin, inviting Elizabeth to enter it, "My quarters. I shall bring something more appropriate for you to wear."

She took a seat on the lid of a large portmanteau, folding her hands in her lap, her dark honey eyes never leaving the floorboards. She looked as still as a sculpture.  
After all, Weatherby thought, she must be traumatised.  
Stuck on an island all alone with that pirate.

A dreadful thought occurred to him, and the look on her face seemed to confirm it. His breath began to catch in his chest.

He stepped into the cabin and knelt before his most precious possession, gazing up into her unblinking orbs with infinite paternal concern.

"Elizabeth." he said in a low, earnest, urgent voice, "How long have you been on that island?"  
She looked at him as though she were surprised that he existed.  
"Only a day. Why, father?"

"I need you to tell me. If he has done anything -" he appeared very uncomfortable at this point, and she wondered what on earth he was getting at, "If he has - taken advantage of you, if he forced you to do anything - if _anybody _has forced you, since you were taken from me -"

She stood up sharp as a bullet from a gun, and glared furiously down at him with suddenly raging black halos.  
He rose too, regaining the advantage of height, and placed both hands on her shoulders.

"I would never allow _anybody_ to take my virtue." she said, in that only-child's tone of her's, "And no, I have _not_ been forced. You humiliate me, father."

Oblivious to her anger he enveloped her in his arms, overwhelmed with relief and tenderness. His daughter was pure still. And just as haughty and fiery-tempered as ever.

"I apologise, my dear. I am only concerned for your utmost wellbeing, you know that." he consoled, as she finally returned his embrace, and buried her face into his shoulder, "I thought I would never see you again. Elizabeth. I think I should have gone mad."

"I was always determined to come back to you, father." she assured him reciprocatively, "And I will come home with you. Once we have rescued the missing part of our family."  
She said the last sentence dryly, and he remembered his harsh dismissal of the boy in his desperation to bring her home directly. He felt the keen sting of guilt under his daughter's judgement.

"You must not think of me too harshly. My only intention is to protect the last remnants of our real family."

With that, he discreetly wiped his eyes and broke away, smiling weakly at her, and then strode out of the cabin in search of some suitable garments to clothe her in.

In the comfort of solitude she sat heavily back down, and put her face in her hands.  
She had fooled him - in a way. She had convinced him that she hadn't done, or wanted to do, anything inappropriate in her time away from home.  
She knew she should revel in her escape from her father's piercing mind, but only felt an overpowering sense of guilt and internal conflict.

_Jack_, she thought softly.  
She could hear muffled voices from the captain's quarters next door, and distinguished Sparrow's tones from all the others.  
She could also hear James, chipping in with cutting questions and comments.

Jack's lingering, gruff, velvety words sounded as though they came from another plane, compared to every other voice in that room. He was infinitely above them all.  
She allowed his purring intonations to wash over her through that wooden wall, feeling it snake along her shouders and relax them, letting it run down her spine in the form of a shiver.

Still wishing for what she couldn't have.  
She tried to block out James' sharp, rapping tone, his constant interruption of Jack's sentences.  
She was going to have to live with that voice now for the rest of her life.

She snorted, as she remembered his proposal on the battlements.  
James would never raise his voice to her. He would never use that knife-edged inflection or those harsh, cold insults.

She would forever dwell upon the cushion of his softer lilt, living in the world of his tenderest notes and most tentative touches. He would treat her as a rare gem, a thing too rare to be handled. Not that he was the kind of man who cared for gems.

Jack cared for gems.  
He picked them up and made them into rings and jewellery. He held them in his coarse brown hands with all the familiarity of a real owner.  
He got bored of them and sold them on to pay for his alcohol and his gunpowder.

Jack's voice was made of gems, and golden coins, and fine silks.  
She would give anything to wake up to that lusty, jewel-encrusted, unreliable voice in the fiery light of dawns to come.

Even now in her mind's eye she could feel his gaze upon her, his two round fragments of hardened black magma. Sable-coloured rocks just waiting to be crushed into diamonds.  
There were diamonds hiding in there even now, that had gleamed at her once or twice, like a wink that she'd barely caught, and barely believed had really happened.

Why was it the good man who stood belittled in the wake of this selfish, outrageous scoundrel?  
Perhaps following too many rules eventually stole away a fellow's attraction, just as age gradually stole a woman's.

Perhaps it was just that Jack was special.  
To her, at least.  
Everybody was special to somebody.

She shouldn't be hoping, even in the most secret compartment of her heart, that she was the girl whom Jack thought special.  
Something told her that she was, and that his regard for her was stronger than she'd dared to think.

It made all the sense in the world when she considered it. The gravity between them, the way he had opened up to her so freely, how he had refrained from ravishing her even in the heat of the moment.

The only girl of class he had ever become involved with.  
Just as he was the only pirate she had ever conspired with, but had dreamed of for endless years of her life.  
Had he dreamed of meeting a woman like her too?

Did his inferiority somehow draw him, as a magpie in England was drawn to bright objects?  
Did the thought of winning over her social standing and claiming her for his own drive him on, in this mess of altogether too brief relations?

She found her mind wandering, again and again, to that proposal on the battlements.  
Something about it held so much meaning for her.

One minute, James was confessing his desire for her. _You have become a fine woman, Elizabeth_.  
She had told him that she couldn't breathe, and like any man of his standing, in her world, in that place, he had taken the comment to be about himself.

The next moment she was lying supine and vulnerable on wooden boards, and a face of shocking contrast to James' was leaning over her. Her corset was lying flat underneath her.

He had interrupted James entirely.  
She liked to think, now, that he had even given her a chance to delay her answer, because she hadn't wanted her answer to be _yes_.  
It was hard to distinguish what she had felt about James before Jack had come along.

He had known exactly what she'd needed, and acted immediately.  
Without any regard to appropriate behaviour, he had done the practical thing.

He'd given her air to breathe.

He was the real and unsung hero of the story.

Without any regard to appropriate behaviour, he had also given her a bottle of rum and danced on a beach with her. Given her the most ecstatic experience of her young life, but denied himself the same. Reduced her to tears with his enchanting talk of the sea, of the life that he led, with the glee of a child who played games all day long.

He had made her feel more alive and vigorous than she'd felt since pirate tales at bedtime with her mother. Now both literally and metaphorically, he had given her some air, in a world where her very breath felt restricted.

And she was turning him and everything he stood for down flat.  
What kind of masochistic idiot was she?

The kind that cared too much for a title, and a father's shame.  
If only she were a simple peasant girl and didn't have to care for her status...  
Then Jack would never have given her a second glance.

It was topsy turvy and too twisted every way she tried to look at it.  
It was just life. Life getting in the way of everything.

She abruptly heard the conversation next door come to a halt, and then footsteps within the captain's cabin. She looked up at the doorway just in time to see the small train of soldiers passing by, with James at their head, and Jack amongst them in manacles.

He didn't see her, but the sight of his tanned profile, his furrowed brow and downcast look, pierced her in a way she couldn't ignore.

She blinked away the silly tears as her father reappeared, edging around the group of men and looking distastefully at Jack.  
He was carrying a navy uniform, respendent in scarlet and cream, and even a pair of black boots.

"There we are now, dear." he laid them in her hands and patted her shoulder briefly, "If you would care for a meal, I am eating quite soon with the Commodore. Perhaps you can tell us about your adventures before we catch up to this island of vagabonds, eh?"


	21. Chapter 21

Hey guys, sorry about the lack of music recently, I've just finished exams and I'm trying to churn out chapters asap for you guys. Enjoy!

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**21.**

Elizabeth barely answered the questions that her father and James threw at her over the dinner table. The truth was she was starving, and gave herself over to her urges, getting as much food down her neck in as short a time as possible.

"When you arrived at this island, then... was it true? Did these pirates really suffer under a curse? Did they attempt to lift it?" Weatherby's tone was hesitant. Very hesitant. He was looking at Elizabeth as though she had been in the sun too long.

"I'm telling you -" she muttered, in the middle of a chicken leg, "I know what I saw, father. They were walking skeletons. Captain Sparrow can affirm it for you."

"Don't call him that, Elizabeth. It only encourages them." James cut in. As she had predicted, she heard a cushioning in his voice that concealed his normal sharpness.  
She couldn't tell whether it was a softness directly from the heart, or simply blanketing a hard, cold interior. She didn't know him well enough to be certain.

And either way, she found that she didn't care.  
Perhaps she would care, in time. But for now he may as well be a blank face in a uniform.

"Besides," her fiancee continued, "I am perfectly willing to believe that you saw something out of the ordinary - but perhaps it was the fear of being captured, or a dose of sedative they had slipped to you, that was the primary cause? Perhaps your imagination ran away with you."

"You underestimate me." she shot back, affronted that he would accuse her of being so weak, "Any overwhelming fear that may have loosened my grip on reality was caused by the sight of these supernatural beings. Ordinary pirates I can deal with quite efficiently, thank you. I steered them away from Port Royal through sheer negotiation, if you remember."

He looked taken aback, and stuttered apologetically, "Of course I did not mean to suggest -"  
"Never mind."

"Elizabeth, what do you say we should do once we reach this destination?" her father changed the subject, focusing upon Elizabeth's enhanced abilities and knowledge deliberately, "Do you know the area well? Can you think of any weaknesses that the thieves may have that could provide us with an advantage? We are in sore need of one."

"They can't die." she stated cooly, "I stabbed Captain Barbossa through the heart myself, and he simply pulled out the knife and laughed at me. The only chance we have of defeating them and freeing Will is to lift their curse before attacking."

The two men exchanged glances. It was incredibly evident that neither of them believed her, though her father was trying to be gentle about it.

"Elizabeth, dear." the Governor tried, once again, to appease her, "Pirates like Sparrow can be very convincing when they want to be. You realise this is a load of old tosh that he has fed you in order to get what he wants."

"Father! I am telling you the absolute truth, I saw it all with my own eyes!" she had stopped eating now, a clear sign that she meant business.

"Let's not discuss it any further. When we arrive we shall see if your theories have any truth in them."  
"When we arrive you had better have a decent plan of action to ensure that all of your men aren't killed on the spot!" she cried, then paused and shook her head, apparently trying to calm herself down, "May I be excused. I must go and rest."

"Of course, my dear, of course. You may use my quarters."

Elizabeth glanced at the table. The two men had barely touched their own meals, which meant they would be eating for a while yet.  
She swiftly and discreetly took hold of the linen napkin in her lap, and hid it behind her as she rose to leave, then marched out of the cabin, shutting the door after her.

She headed straight below deck, ducking out of the way of the naval officers and slipping down the hatch with the utmost discretion.  
She considered attempting to seek out a set of keys, but knew that James would probably have the only copies, and was likely keeping a close eye on them.


	22. Chapter 22

It's a Jackathon thought train! Enjoy.

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Playlist'All of Them!' from King Arthur.

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**22.**

The brig again.  
Jack had assumed his typical position, sitting on a box with his head leaned easily against the wooden boards behind him, and his hat tilted down over his eyes.  
There was a sharp kernel of bitterness and discomfort twisting around in his belly.

He had figured it out even as they were leading him through Norrington's doorway, into the captain's chart room. The Commadore's private quarters were just visible through another door to the right. His stomach had turned over when he'd thought about that bed, and who may soon be in it.

She'd meant it when she'd said she wasn't turning pirate.  
The strongheaded wench.  
He should have seen this coming, with the talks and the tears and the holding back.  
But _marriage_? So soon?  
To _him_?

_Elizabeth! Are you accepting the Commodore's proposal?_

So that was it. Already engaged when she'd met him. Half-engaged. Thinking upon it.  
What a saucy little lass. What a scallywag!

And there he'd been, looking like an absolute wet jellyfish, bending over backwards on that island with a _please an' thank you Miss_. He'd given her a nickname.  
You didn't give people nicknames unless they meant something to you.

_This isn't about what bloody social circles you move in!  
_No. It was all about what social circles the Commodore was flitting through, apparently.

He really did despise a dishonest woman. Especially now.  
The one woman who had done him over before he could abandon her first.

**'All of Them!'**

The question of whether he really _would_ have abandoned her, had she been loyal to him, drifted slowly through his mind, and he realised that he wasn't certain on the subject.  
Though he doubted that he would have.  
She was too interesting.

And God forbid, she was lovable.

He _knew _that he had only been chasing after her memory for days and days after they'd first met.  
He _knew _they had only really known one another since he had swung over from the _Pearl _to find her in the heat of battle. Since they had stepped off that plank of wood together.

He knew she was a stranger, even though she had read about him. Even though she seemed to know him through and through already.

But she intrigued him.  
More than that, she had the potential to blow him over and shackle him in the chains of love.  
He knew that more than he knew anything else. It blazed within him.

He was aching to be conquered and he had never felt that before. Not even for Angelica.  
He had run from her because she wasn't the one for him.

When he had imagined the rest of his life with that pirate girl he had shuddered. Imagine the disagreements. The children!  
And the eventual going of separate ways... It was doomed before it had begun.

Everything about Lizzie smacked of endurance, from the determination ever present on her face to the youth and purity of her honey-coloured skin, tanned from the beach, and the innocence of her lips, and the sword-sharp gleam in her dark eyes.

_Innocence_. She played that game well.  
She was anything but.

He had considered already that she had his best interests at heart. She planned to help him to get the _Pearl _back. She had read so many pirate tales as a child that she had the pirate mentality scrawled all over the inside of her head.

It was why she seemed to know him so well. Her mind worked exactly like his own, when it was given the space to function that way.

And he was glad. He was glad that he was getting the _Pearl _back, so that he could use it to sail as far away from her sweet adoring gaze as quickly as possible.  
Her doe-eyed expression, as he had told her about his life. About his dream of her. It still stood there, like a relic of her lost potential behind his eyelids.

He would never regain that Elizabeth, that he thought he had unleashed forever.  
Lizzie.  
She was all but dead and gone again. In the brig, like he was.

He fought against the selfish and adamant part of his mind that insisted he must find a way to set her free again.  
He had had his chance, when she had given up right there in front of him, given herself up to Norrington.

He could have pulled a sword from the hilt of any of those men, and battled for her freedom or died trying.  
But if he was realistic he had known the girl a day and a night in full. And she had turned against him. And it was to be expected.

He was a pirate who had seduced her on their first night together, like a common whore.  
He had shown that she was nothing to him but another catch. Another set of spread legs.

Their flame had been fierce, but very small.  
It hadn't had the time to weld them together yet.  
If she had stood beside him, defended her true wishes, defied her father and taken up arms with Jack then he may have considered braving his biggest fear, the fear of battle and death.

But it was never going to be that way.  
She wasn't in love with him, and therefore she would choose the respectable Commodore.  
He wasn't in love with her, and therefore he would not be saving her from a trap of her own making.

There was another _but_ that he had been vaguely contemplating, and not quite trusting.  
It was this:  
Curiosity, and the pull of temptation.

He had used her as a hostage upon their first meeting. Drawn a pistol and pointed it at her gorgeous little head.  
But hours later she had turned up in his jail cell, confessing that she wanted to see how he was doing.

She had been in danger at the Isle de Muerta, and his concern was so great that he had allowed himself to be caught off guard in the heat of battle with the whelp.  
She had been in peril aboard the _Interceptor_ and he had gone straight to her.  
She had said his name, then. His real name.

She had cried when she'd told him she couldn't be like him. Couldn't be one of them.  
She had given into him, allowed him to expose her in the most explicit ways, trusted him with the sight of her body. In that moment, none of the outside world had mattered. Not even to her.

In return, he had let her burn the rum.

And now this. Even as she had uttered the words to Norrington he had said her name his name for her utterly involuntarily. And she had responded. He had seen the guilt and torment on that bonny visage, and caught just a glimpse of what she might have been going through.

They were magnetised.  
Even now he could feel the bond between them, their tangible future, despite any distance.  
It drew a straight line from him to her, through walls and floors. Connected them by soul and body. Especially body.

He could feel her thinking about him, because it wasn't possible that she was thinking anything else. Just as it wasn't possible that he could think upon anything else but her.

She wasn't dead quite yet, his Lizzie.  
She remembered him, and Lord knew how slippery and slanted the slope down to sin and betrayal was... when there was fatal attraction involved.

His nobler half told him strictly that it was wrong to presume that he had a right to test her, to bring her down to his low level. He shouldn't be meddling with her emotions. He should let her go, let her live her own life because that was the right thing for her.

He tried to convince himself that all this rubbish he was spouting was truth.  
The right thing for her?

Why, in all _honest _truth the right thing for her was_ him_.

In moral truth, however... the Commodore was exactly what she needed to steer her onto the righteous path again. Back into society. Back into God's fold, back into prospects, back into good behaviour and great luxury.

Jack snorted.  
He wouldn't even get a chance to try and persuade her his way, anyhow.  
She was currently involved in fine dining with her fiancée and father, probably laughing at Jack for all his foolish concern and loyalty. Probably having a grand old time of it in the lap of luxury, and finery, and more appropriate clothing.

He abruptly heard footsteps on the stairs from the hatch above, movement behind the wooden door to his right. The handle turned slowly. His heart raced.

"Jack?"

Her voice was as soft as a real caress, and twice as warm.  
All thought of nobility sank away from him, into the depths of his lust, as deep as the ocean itself.

She had come. Their attraction was well and truly fatal.  
So hard to fight.


	23. Chapter 23

Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews! Love you guys xx

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**23.**

"Ah." Jack said, in his best attempt at a disdainful tone, "Look who we 'ave 'ere."

Elizabeth - Lizzie - emerged from behind the door, her eyes wide and shy like a deer's.  
Why did she have to look so vulnerable? It made him feel cruel for wanting to spite her. And it was his right to be spiteful. She had no business winning both ways.

She grabbed a barrel and moved it to his cell bars, where she perched upon it gracefully.  
She was in a navy uniform, which in itself was startling, and also strangely sexy.

"Here." she handed him a full napkin. He unfolded it, and found soft, fresh bread, chicken legs, and a fair cut from a side of ham.  
As he was devouring the chicken first, she reached into her boots and pulled out a flask, a banana and more bread.

He went for the flask like an animal, hoping for alcohol. It was only water, but he relished it anyway.

"You got anything in there for me s'well?" he asked, glancing at her pressed white shirt.  
She only rolled her eyes.

"I'm sorry I haven't got any keys. But you'll be out of here soon enough. They need you to negotiate with the pirates, I'll bet."  
"I know that." he snapped, his mouth full of ham and bread, "I plan to scurry along to the island and convince your _esteemed _navy to wait outside, while I do all the plotting."

"Then once your crew is freed from the _Black Pearl_'s brig, and the curse is lifted and Barbossa's men surrender - well," she looked up at him from under long lashes, with a wistful edge to her voice, "You will be free. And Captain."

"Tha's all I'm after." he agreed noncommittally.  
He had polished off every morsel of food, and went back to staring at the wall opposite him, once again tilting his hat over his brow so he didn't have to look at her.  
He could feel her looking at him, though.  
He could sense the crestfallen appearance of her bonny face and the sinking of her heart.

He didn't care a trifle for it.  
Because if he did care, he was a sentimental yellow-bellied runt and not worth the title of Captain.

He wasn't just any man, and he wasn't going to lie down flat on his face for any woman.  
If only she were just any woman.  
Any other woman.

"Jack, please. You can do anything but hate me." she pleaded very quietly.  
"I don't hate ye, luv." he retorted, in stony cold tones, "I jus' understand that we don't mean anything to one another any more."

"Oh Jack, don't think that!" she cried, "I could be giving you the cold shoulder this minute, like I am my father and James -"  
"Ah. James. Is that his name?"  
"- But you are the only man I _want _to be honest with!"

"Honest?" he snorted, and was about to rise up in his anger, but decided against it, and instead remained still as a statue. It would hurt her more to show that he wasn't overwhelmed by agitation, "If you wanted to be honest with me, darling, ye'd have done it the minute we got stranded. The minute ye stepped into me prison in yer home town."

"You know it's far more complex than that." she bit back just as swiftly, taking him by surprise, "You're a smart man, Jack. I don't have to explain my dilemma to you all over again. Anybody in my position would have done the same."

"What, tease a bloke to within inches of his life only to drop him like an anchor?"  
"I am not a tease!"  
"Then what on earth do you call your own actions over the past 'owever many hours?"

She looked at her hands, cradled in her lap, and scowled the worst scowl he had ever seen.  
This was going to be more than a little distressing for the both of them.


	24. Chapter 24

Sorry for the long delay! I've spent ages on a nice update for you. Enjoy!

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Playlist today:

'The Legend of Ashitaka' from Princess Mononoke.  
'Adagio of Life and Death', from the same.  
'Requiem II', from - you guessed it.

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**24.**

There was a painful silence, during which the rolling waves could be heard being cut aside by the ship's prow.  
Elizabeth was fading, and Lizzie was beginning to take shape before his eyes. Her petite shoulders slumped in surrender, and her darling eyes sparkled with regret.

"You understand, Jack." she murmured, ashamed, twisting her fingers together.  
He reached a hand through the bars and laid it over her's. Gently. Quietly.

She drew in a breath, and the tears receded from her shining orbs. Daring to look up at him, her gaze was keen and dark.  
He pulled himself away from the wall and leaned in towards her, as her ethereal visage also moved closer to his cage. His eyelids hung over his pitch black halos, giving him an irresistably seductive look, like a panther's predatory stare.

"I understand." he purred, lifting one of her hands to intertwine with his own. His palm was rough and warm, his fingers incredibly gentle. He slowly slid them through the gaps between her own, and closed them all together.

Ducking his head gradually, he planted a single kiss on her knuckle, a lingering brush of the lips that sent tingles down her spine.

Her jaw slack with enchantment and pleasure, she put her forehead against the bars and closed her eyes, as she felt his breath on her face.  
"I understand," he said again, in an infinitely colder tone, "Exactly what you mean, luv."

She extended her free hand solemnly and placed it flat upon his chest. If it weren't for these bars he could have his arm around her waist by now. Have her cuddled into his torso, the natural perfume of her hair in his nostrils, her smooth forehead against his mouth.

If she were to tell him now that she had changed her mind, that she would follow him to whatever horizon he chose, he would treat her with all the affection of a real, courting gentleman.  
She must know this. She must know that a few words was all it would take.

He could stop holding back, stop injecting such sharp iciness into this almost-perfect moment.

Any other girl would have been turned out of the brig by now. He'd rather be alone than mocked in this fashion. But he couldn't send this one away. No matter how painful it was to look at that breathtaking woman and know that they had no future, he couldn't bear to think of her with Norrington instead of himself.

Lizzie felt his heart quickening beneath her palm, and tried not to show the blush rising to her cheeks. His steady, heavy-lidded gaze gave all appearances of a blank mind, but she knew that thoughts were churning away in there. Thoughts about her.

Would James ever look at her in that way?

Jack noticed a blush rising to her cheeks as she opened her eyes to look into his. He tried to control his pulsing heartbeat, fearing she may have noted it.  
Her searching, earnest stare gave all appearances of questioning bewilderment, but he knew that her quick mind was figuring him out in instants.

Would she ever look so wonderingly at the Commodore?

"Tell me." she spoke almost against his lips, their mouths were so close together now, "Tell me what it is."  
"It's as simple as this, darling." he stole a brief kiss from her honey-sweet lips, and smirked, "Yer a scaredy cat. Yer a yellow-bellied trickster, an' a roguish wench if ever I met one."

"Do you really think that of me?"  
"I knows it. Yer one of the worst types, my Lizzie." those possessive words made her shudder with guilty ecstasy, "Ye have the capabilities of a fearsome scoundrel, but yer not brave enough ter run the risks."  
"I _am_ brave."  
"Only in some cases, darling. Only in some cases."

"You have a perfectly terrible outlook upon my life. Shouldn't I get credit for trying to be respectable?"  
"Are ye honest? No? Then ye can never be respectable, lass."

Every single fibre of her body ached and pulled at her to kiss him. His lips were so close she could feel the heat, the breath, the electricity from them. She could feel them almost as though they were her own, because they shared the same longing lust.

But there was a line drawn before her, and she must stick to it.  
She despised herself for being convinced that if he kissed _her_, and she didn't respond, it didn't count.

"Although..." he murmured, untangling their hands that had been gripping one another for so long, "I _have_ been thinking, down 'ere, whilst ye've been dining fancy-like with yer fiancee."  
"And what brilliant thoughts have sprung to your illustrious mind?" she teased with a slight smile.

"That we are very much alike, you and I... I and you. Us."  
"Don't play games with me, Jack."

"I think it be _ye_ who's been playing all the games, my luv."  
"And wouldn't you relish an opportunity to get your own back." she retorted with a hint of spite.

"You hurt me by presuming such a thing." he leaned in and before she knew what was happening, another delicious theft had occurred between their lips, "If I wanted to get me own back, I would have sent ye away with yer tail between yer legs minutes after ye'd entered this murky hole. No, luv. I am simply waiting."

"For what?"  
"For ye to begin the descent. Ye _will _come over to my side, I know it."  
"What makes you so sure?" she challenged, but the challenge was a husky whisper.

His dusky eyes became even darker, and she got quite lost in them for a moment. A sensation like sinking into a warm bath washed over her.

"_Curiosity_." he breathed, "Ye long for freedom. To act on selfish impulse; ye know what it's like, now. Ye can't resist it, not even this minute, not for all the years that we are going to keep bumping into each other."

"I think you underestimate me. And yourself."  
"How do ye mean?"

She pulled herself away from him, so that he could no longer tempt her with that wry inviting smile.

"You and I _are _alike. In more than one way."  
"How do ye know? Ye don't know me."  
"I do so and you know it. I know you because we're the same, and I'm telling you, you _will _seize the chance to prove yourself one day."

"Prove what, exactly?"  
"That you can do the right thing. That you're a good man."

Jack scoffed. "All evidence to the contrary. All I seem to keep doing is succeed in seducing you."  
"You've done a lot for me already, Jack, that has had nothing with seduction."

"Name one thing."  
"You didn't force me." she said bluntly.

He froze, and scowled.  
"A simple bluff. It was a method of longer-term seduction. Getting ye to trust me. Ye should be smart enough to realise that."

"I don't think so. I have faith in you, Jack. Do you know why?"  
"Go ahead."

She smiled to herself for a moment, and then cocked her head, gazing up at him with cheeky, glimmering orbs.

**'The Legend of Ashitaka'.**

Her expression was almost mocking for a moment, before it turned solemn again.

"_Curiosity_. You want the chance to be admired for once - and gain the rewards that follow. You crave my approval, Jack. I can see it. You love that a _classy wench _like me thinks that you're not such a bad man."

Blow the man down. She was even using his lingo. How was she doing that? It was as though she were reading his mind - deeper than his conscious thoughts. She was reading his soul.

"You want to be noble. You want to be recognised. And I can help you with that, Jack. I can have people's tongues wagging all over Port Royal about Captain Sparrow, the Noble Pirate. Strong, brave, daring and mischevous. But not wicked. Not a man for the gallows."

"Yer bluffing."  
"Am not."  
"What on earth do I need ter do, ter get this kind of recognition, then?"

"You need to actually _do the right thing_, Jack." she looked at him with all the sadness that the world itself could muster up, "You need to let me be."

Her voice was steely and strong, no matter what her face was telling him.  
Elizabeth was back, and she was pushing Lizzie out of the way, in an incredible effort to steer things into her control again.

Jack paused, considering her words deeply.

"In theory it all sounds rather brilliant, luv." he murmured eventually, without a hint of humour on his smooth, sober visage, "But yer forgetting one rather important factor in this whole affair."

"What's that?"

He grabbed her by the front of her shirt, yanked her towards him, and crushed his mouth against her own in the most passionate kiss he had ever delivered to anybody.  
She resisted at first, but his coaxing lips and the steady motion of his jaw as he kissed and kissed and kissed her won her over. Through the iron bars, she threw her arms about his neck.

He responded by snaking a forearm about her waist as best he could, squeezing her til she had barely any room to inhale. She moaned under her breath. It was titillating, alluring, delightful.

But he had proven his point, and now he broke away from her just as abruptly as he'd pulled her to him.

She sat back and stared hard at him, panting.  
She looked crestfallen.

He gave her a crooked smile, narrowing his eyes at her.  
"Herein lies our problem, darling." he said huskily, "We can't resist. Not for anything."

**'Adagio of Life and Death'.**

"It's not my fault. You started it."  
"I started nothing. I just couldn't help meself first. _You_ couldn't help yerself second."

She huffed, crossed her arms, and glared at him with fiery contempt.

"Don't look at me like that, Lizzie. Ye know it's impossible. If we're going to be here together, we're going to be _together_. We don't have a choice."

There was a long silence.

"Well, then. I shall have to make sure that we aren't ever within each others' reach, shan't I." she said finally, "If that's the only way to prevent this."

Jack's expression dropped. He had the sense that everything he'd worked towards during this conversation was backfiring on him.

"We shall be well rid of one another soon enough. When you regain the _Pearl_. And I shall return home with James. We may part as friends."  
"I may be dropping by to ransack a few neighbouring towns once in a while." he interjected, "Consider that. Ye'll miss me, missy. Ye'll come an' meet me, I'll wager."

"If you come anywhere near to Port Royal, _I'll _wager James will be onto you like a bloodhound. It's going to take enough effort on my part to ensure you escape at the island, Jack. Don't allow the Commodore to undo all of my endeavours."

"He'll bore you, luv. He'll bore you to death. Ye'll die at the ripe old age of twenty five, an' the doctors won't be able to place it, but I shall know. An' then I shall say, I told ye so."

She threw him an angry look.  
Then her visage cleared, and she looked as though she had come to the cusp of a revelation.

"Unless." she pondered slowly.  
Then hesitated.

He hated it when other people had ideas and held them back. That was usually his job.  
Jack Sparrow, Captain In-the-Know. Captain Plot-a-Lot.  
It was insulting that a wench always seemed to be one step ahead of him, deflecting his leverage, countering his arguments, and now witholding information.

"Jus' spit it out, 'Lizabeth." he snapped, "Whatever it is ye wish to torture me with next."

She bit her lip, and he nearly groaned aloud for love of that shapely mouth, that provocative gesture.  
Suddenly, she was leaning forward once again, looking at him with such intensity that he nearly flinched. Her eyes were burning coals against her pale skin.

"Jack, I know you don't think much of the civilian life."  
"Aye, you do know that."

"But you had a bad brush with the wrong people, don't you see? Not everybody sells slaves for money. Not everybody is Lord - what's his name."  
"Cutler Beckett."  
"Yes. I mean, look at my father. Look at any ordinary honest man in Port Royal. They work fairly and are paid fairly. Even Will."

Jack looked her up and down for a moment, and realised truly for the first time that this beautiful, clever, high-class woman wasn't at all interested in social status. Be it he or William or James, she judged by moral standards.

Lord knew what she saw in him, then.

**'Requiem II'.**

"Respectability." he echoed her thoughts aloud, "You wish for your father to pardon me, in order for me to become a good citizen, earn my way, and be a loyal husband to protect and cherish you, forever and ever, amen."

"Not quite." she looked determinedly at her feet, "All but the last part. I don't expect you to settle down in a quiet house with me and never do anything interesting again, Jack. We would - court - for as long as we liked. We would hardly have to worry about money, father would take care of most of it. You could become a sailor. Like Will's father."

He couldn't look at her for a while.  
Throwing himself back against the wall and tipping his hat once again over his eyes, he sat in severe thought.

Everything in his gut revolted against the very idea of turning not-pirate.  
Everything in his reasoning followed a similar line of thought to his gut's instinct.

Playing fair. No more lying, plotting, accidental planning, long-term planning, no more revenge, no more chasing impossible sources of supernatural excitement.  
No more father, no more Shipwreck Cove, no more _Pearl_.

Perhaps no more ocean.

He drew Lizzie into the equation, and saw her sitting softly beside a roaring fire, sowing the knee of his trousers, in an elegant dress, with a child playing in a well-behaved manner at her side. Her hair was pinned up and curled, just as he hated it.

He saw himself taking regular baths. Getting along with work fellows. Or rather, not getting along as soon as they discovered what his ex-career had been.  
Eating meals made for him by a quality chef. Drinking a lot. Reclining in an armchair, without his baggy shirt or tattered sash, without his bandana, without his _hat_.

His heart twinged a little toward her, but the spark of his lust died with the shadowy figure of that future wife, sowing by the fire.

He imagined her as she had been on their island.  
It was no longer the dreaded place it once had been. Nor was it only his, now.  
It meant something more.  
It meant her loose wavy locks and her flushed, excited smile and her unclean petticoat swaying over the sand.

It meant his learning to care for somebody else's hunger, somebody else's joy, somebody else's sorrow.

He could see no other Lizzie but that one in his life.  
He could see no other Jack but that one, either.

"Get out of me sight." he muttered, finally, without looking at her, "Any lass who asks that much of me doesn't deserve my affections anyhow. I ain't putting the noose around _my_ neck as well as ye's."

He sensed her stiffen, all of her protective walls swiftly realigning around her. Elizabeth, the Governor's daughter, stood up with a grace and aloofness in her air that would make any man think that her heart was barely dented.

"Good day to you, too." she stated coldly.

She turned, trembling only slightly, and strode to the door.

And with that, she was gone.  
The Commadore awaited her.


	25. Chapter 25

****Usually I like waiting a couple of days to let the reviews flow, but I'm feeling generous, so here's a quicker update.  
People who don't do reviews: I see you, putting on your Story Alerts! I know you're reading! So pretty please throw us a few words every now and again, it will be greatly appreciated and I will update quicker as a consequence!

* * *

**25.**

When Jack got the _Pearl _back, the first thing he ought to do was clean the brig, Will thought to himself bitterly.  
The ship's current crew were mopping the floors. And making them a lot worse than they had been before.

Cotton's parrot seemed to agree, for it squawked out a stereotypical pirate catchphrase that completely gave away the fact that Disney, and not a company concerned with historical accuracy or realism, had produced this film.

"Cotton 'ere says you missed a bit." Gibbs translated helpfully.  
He was sprayed with oily black water for his cheek.

William spoke to the man with the ridiculous bald head, noticing that he was part of a comedy duo founded on humorous stupidity, and hoping to get an easy answer out of him. "You knew William Turner?" he enquired, in a low and serious tone that matched the lowness and seriousness of his bad mood, due to his discovery that his long-lost father was, in fact, dead.

"Ol' Bootstrap Bill?" the bare-skulled idiot answered, "We knew him. Never sat well with Bootstrap what we did to Jack Sparrow, the mutiny and all. He said it wasn't right with the Code. That's why he sent off a piece of the treasure to you, as it were. He said we deserved to be cursed - and remain cursed."

_Oh_, William thought. _Well, that's cleared the plot up a bit._

"Stupid blighter," the other stupid pirate piped up.

Will began to get angry, and the author of this story decided that it was time to move on.  
Now we may leave Mr. Turner looking glamorously beautiful and pristine, despite the fact that he is a blacksmith _and _a pirate, and get back to the heroes of this particular narrative.

Apologies, William. We love you dearly, but there is a massive lover's tiff going on over at the other ship, and it's really far more interesting. You get to reappear very soon, we promise.

* * *

Still aboard the _Dauntless_, with men preparing to lower the longboats, the Commodore looked Jack up and down in what could only be called severe disdain.

Elizabeth stood beside James with her head turned away from the pirate.  
She dared not look him in the eye, for fear that it would give her away. But she needed to be close. She needed to ensure that Jack regained his ship and escaped with it.

If he didn't, things were going to get more complicated, and she was going to have to do a lot more sneaking about, and practise an awful lot more self-control.

"I don't care for the situation." Norrington drawled, his tone antagonising Jack awfully, "Any attempt to storm the caves could turn to an ambush."

Jack tried not to roll his eyes. This man was interfering with every aspect of his brilliant plan to get the _Pearl _back.

His brilliant plan being, let the navy storm the caves, get Elizabeth to help him escape, row to the _Pearl_, free his crew and be off while the lot of them battled each other to a bloody end.

He was going to have to change tactics now. And fast.  
And come to think of it, if Plan A had gone ahead there would have been a danger of _her_ being captured by Barbossa's bilge rats again, and who knew what they would do to her this time.

He would have been happy to drag her to the _Pearl _to safety. And her dearest Daddy too.  
He brushed away the notion that her father might be so grateful as to offer Jack her hand in marriage as reward.

It was the silliest and most dangerous idea he had ever had.  
Dangerous, because of the way his heart leapt at the very thought.

He turned his attention to Norrington again.

"_Not_ if yer the one doing the ambushing. _I_ go in, I convince Barbossa to send his men out with their little boats." for once, he was telling the truth - sort of, "You and your mateys stay here, and blast the bejesus outta them with your little cannons, eh?"

He threw a very casual arm around the Commodore's shoulders, but his fist was clenched. If nothing else, he wanted to irritate this rival as much as possible before he sailed away from the whole situation, and left Elizabeth to him. "What do you have to lose?"

He stole a glance at the lady herself over Norrington's neck. She was wide-eyed and obviously ruffled by his show of arrogance and abrasiveness.  
He cast her a wicked grin as the Commodore peeled his arm away in disgust.

"Nothing I'd lament being rid of." he replied, rather plainly.

"I take it that you plan to have the curse lifted before we send the pirates out?" Elizabeth interjected solemnly.  
The Commodore politely but firmly ignored her.  
Jack, who was part-time blanking her anyway, pretended that he had some dust on his shoulder.

He was directed towards a longboat, flanked by two burly, mean-looking soldiers.  
He glanced at them disapprovingly, a little annoyed that they would be getting in the way of things, but entered the boat with aloof finesse that somehow managed to put them below him in everybody's esteem.

Elizabeth moved to follow them, but Norrington caught her arm.

"Where are you going?"  
"With them. I have to make sure that Will is properly rescued." she half-lied.

"You are not stepping one foot upon that island, Elizabeth. It is my duty to ensure your safety and I cannot go with you, I have too much to do here."  
"I can take care of _myself_." she growled, baring her teeth at him. He looked slightly taken aback, but held his ground.

"You are betrothed to me now, Elizabeth. Where your safety is concerned you shall do as I say, do you understand?"  
She really riled at that remark.  
Jack could see her point, as well.  
Handed over from her father to her fiancee, with no freedom between, save for a week of being frightened half to death by the wrong sort of pirates.

He would rather drown himself than succumb to a fate like her's.  
It was a mystery that she had decided to bear this, that she hadn't agreed to run away with him already.

The fact that she was voluntarily giving herself up to this kind of treatment soured any pity he may have felt for her.

He didn't want her getting in his way on the island, anyhow. If Will was in danger she was bound to interrupt and spoil his plans.  
She may forfeit him the _Pearl _through her tendency towards altruism.

"To be quite honest," Jack directed his narrowed gaze at her again, enjoying her guilty blush, "there's still a slight risk for those aboard the _Dauntless_ which includes the future Mrs. Commodore, here."

She opened her mouth and actually looked straight at him in her dismay and anger.

"How dare you!" she fairly yelled, "How dare you take his side! I am coming with you - with the - men. I have to ensure Will's safety, as I'm certain you won't!"

"Gilette, please secure Miss Swann. She seems adamant to go, and I cannot allow it." Norrington ordered cooly, but glanced at Elizabeth with a softer regret.  
She glared balefully at him, regardless of his intentions or the reassuring words he tried to offer her.

It made Jack fiercely glad. She could only be so angry because she wanted to be with him. She was still fighting with herself.

Then it occurred to him that she wanted to accompany him so that she could be certain he escaped with his ship.  
So she could place aside any guilt she felt for him, and then leave him far behind.

Regardless of whether he was intending to leave her behind himself, he felt a cruel stab to his chest at that thought.

It just wasn't fair - she was constantly coming up trumps, while he floundered behind her.  
She had the class advantage, the wit, the irresistable seduction that came so naturally to her; she had turned him down, she had replaced him, and now she was planning to abandon him.

Women weren't complete mysteries after all. They were really just very clever men.

"Get off me!" Elizabeth demanded as two soldiers, one being Gilette, practically lifted her off the ground and hauled her away to the Captain's mess.

"Sorry, but for your own safety." Jack caught Gilette chuckling.

"James!" she tried, one last time, "The pirates! They cannot be killed! JACK! Tell him!"

The Commodore turned to raise an eyebrow at him.  
"Go on, Sparrow. What do you have to say to all this?"

Jack made a mighty appearance of being perplexed, as he sat down in the boat.  
"I've no idea what she's on about. Must have been the sun, got to her a bit on the island." he remarked so she could hear.

"_Bastard_!" he heard, just before the doors were locked behind her.

"Right. Let's be off!" Jack cried, gesturing to his soldier companions to hurry the blazes up.

His heart was hardened. He was ready.


	26. Interlude

This isn't a full update guys, but I really wanted to give you a new experience. This is a chance to take yourself out of the ordinary reading process and remove yourself to a plane outside of time and space, outside of any specific moment in this story.

I usually avoid inserting music with lyrics into the narrative, because it distracts people from the words on the page. But this is a song that deserves your full attention purely because of its lyrics.

All I ask you to do now is to put this song on, sit back, and listen.  
And as you're listening, let the references in these lyrics take you back to the story you've been reading here, let images and feelings drift back from past chapters, and think about Jack's particular mindset at this moment in time, as he is on his way to the Isle de Muerta in the longboat.

Everything about this song speaks for itself, really, so I'll just let you get on with it.  
For me, it opened up a really nice (albiet heartbreaking) window into Jack's mind, and shed new light on his emotions that could only be brought about through the tone of this music.

The song is: "A Heart You Can't Find" by Wise Children.

I'll put the lyrics here so you can follow them and take in the song fully. Enjoy!

* * *

_I never told you about your mouth  
How when you speak, I grow still  
How every word that you say  
Just makes me die._

_And I never put myself on the line  
'Cause you can't break a heart you can't find._

_I never told you about your eyes  
How when you look at me, I feel blind  
And when I don't see you for months  
You're still always on my mind._

_And I never put myself on the line  
'Cause you can't break a heart you can't find._

_And I was falling for you  
From the start  
But now you're drifting from me  
And you're too far from land  
And this is tearing me apart  
I'll be calling your name  
While I crawl through the sand._

_I never told you about your man  
How when he speaks, I grow ill  
How when I see you with him  
I don't feel like it's real._

_And I never put myself on the line  
'Cause you can't break a heart you can't find.  
_


	27. Chapter 26

_Author's Note_: I am so so sorry for this blow-by-blow scene. I know it's really similar to the film, but since the characters' motives were different, I sort of had to include it all to make the story complete. I hope I've made it up to you by giving you little peeks into the characters' real thoughts.

* * *

**26.**

"No reason to fret!" the bald one said lightly as he dragged Will through the cavern towards the cursed chest, "It's just a prick of the finger, a few drops of blood."  
"No mistakes this time." a voice barked from behind them, belonging to an equally repulsive individual with a menacing grin, "He's only half-Turner. We spill it all!"

"Guess there is reason to fret." the stupidest of the stupid duo muttered with a chuckle.

Will was pushed and pulled, and pushed a bit more, and finally thrust towards Barbossa the blackguard. The wrinkled old criminal beamed at him with ratty yellowed eyes, and promptly bent him over the chest of golden coins with surprising force.

A knife was pressed to his throat.

"Um," Will ventured, trying to be helpful, "perhaps you could try a prick of the finger first?"  
"Shut yer filthy mouth." the ruffian spat back at him.

Will was insulted. He hadn't had the chance to brush his teeth in a while, but he was certain that his mouth was physically and metaphorically a lot more hygenic than any of these rascals'.

He didn't have a chance to protest, however, for at that moment he noticed Jack Sparrow himself picking his way through the crowd, not a far way off.

"Begun by blood!" Barbossa bellowed, oblivious to the situation.  
"Excuse me." came Jack's mockingly polite tone.

Will could honestly say he had never been so glad to hear that voice before.  
Correction - he had never actually _been _glad to hear that voice before.

"By blood un -"  
"Jack!" Will cried, thinking it was about time his about-to-be murderer took notice, and stopped trying to murder him.

The knife did, indeed, slacken a little at his throat, and Barbossa's body went similarly limp.

"S'not possible." he wheezed.  
"Not _probable_."

Jack had nearly reached them. He had the most smug look on his stupid face.  
Will wanted to punch it, despite the fact that it was currently postponing his death.

"Where is Miss Swann?" he asked irritably.

Since he had learned of the death of his father, his only silver lining to this entire trip had become her safety, and the paying of his great debt to her father the Governor.  
If Jack had gone and spoilt that for him too, it would be more than he could bear.

He reminded himself to violently attack Sparrow later, for misleading him to think that his late parent had still had breath in his lungs.

Talk about false bribery.

"She's safe, she's safe." Jack waved away William's enquiry as though it were a passing comment upon the weather.  
However, his overly-aloof expression told Will there was a bit more to it.

"What on earth has been going on since we, er, left you last?"  
"Oh, you know. Sea turtles and all that. We used 'Lizabeth's hair for the raft this time. She's bald as an eagle. Looks bloody brilliant. She's all set to marry that Commadore fella."

Yes, indeed. The aloofness was getting more intense, and at the same Jack's eyebrows were drawing closer and closer together, until they slanted hawkishly over his shadowed eyes.

"Shut up! You're next." Barbossa interrupted, to Jack's infinite gratitude.  
He bent to press the knife against Will's jugular once again, with a leering determined sneer.

"You don't - want to be doing that, mate." Sparrow's voice, once again, interrupted.  
Will breathed yet another sigh of relief.

"No, I really think I do." the pirate snapped back.  
"... Your funeral."

Jack was an expert in irritating comments.  
Barbossa and Will felt this mutually.

"_Why_ don't I want to be doing it?"  
"Well, because -" Sparrow pushed an obnoxious pirate's arm off his shoulder, "because the _HMS Dauntless_, pride of the Royal Navy, is floating just offshore. Waiting for_ you_."

* * *

"I know _why_ we're here." Murtogg emphasised for Mullroy's benefit, "I mean why aren't we doing what it was, what Mr. Sparrow said we should do? With the cannons and all, back at the _Dauntless_?"

"Because it was _Mr. Sparrow _who said it." the Commodore said loudly from the head of the longboat.

A horrific thought suddenly occurred to Murtogg.  
"You think he wasn't telling the truth?"

* * *

"Just hear me out, mate." Jack drawled in an overly-confident, soothing tone that would have fooled almost any man but Barbossa, "You order your men to row out to the _Dauntless._ They do what they do best. Robert's your Uncle, Fannie's your Aunt, there you are with two ships. The makings of your very own fleet. 'Course you'll take the grandest as your flagship, and who's to argue? But what of the _Pearl_? Name _me_ Captain, I'll sail under your colors, I'll give you ten percent of me plunder and you get to introduce yourself as - _Commodore_ Barbossa. Savvy?"

William rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.  
So, Jack was at the peak of his expedition. He was finally about to get his ship back.  
And a fat lot of good it had done all the rest of them.

Bloody pirates.

"I s'pose in exchange, you want me not to kill the whelp." Barbossa interjected suspiciously.

"No, no, not at all! By all means, kill the whelp! Just not _yet_."  
Jack was giving Will a very meaningful glance.

"Wait to lift the curse until the _opportune moment_. For instance -" Jack scooped up a handful of the glittering coins, "after you've killed Norrington's men. Every - last - one."

William looked and re-looked at Jack's hand. He had only dropped three coins. Hadn't he picked up a good handful?  
Sure enough, there was a slight glint of gold, where a hidden piece still belonged - stolen - to the wily Captain.  
The words _opportune moment _clicked into place very suddenly.

And as much as he didn't like the sound of Jack's opportune moments, it may be the only way to get out of here alive.

As he finally cottoned on he sprang into verbal action. "You've been planning this from the beginning! Ever since you learned my name!"

"Err. Yeah."

"I want fifty percent of your plunder." Barbossa piped up.  
"Fifteen." Jack retorted, offended.  
"Forty."  
"Twenty-five. And I'll buy you the hat. A really big one... Commodore."

He had touched Barbossa's weak spot. The mention of hats sealed the deal.  
"We have an accord."  
They shook hands, as though they were halfway decent chaps who were about to keep their word.

"All hands to the boats!"  
Jack paused, and glanced at his now-comrade. "Apologies. You give the orders."

"Gents!" the wily seadog grinned, "take a walk."  
"... Not to the boats?"

Bugger. Bugger, bugger, _bugger _it all.

He had intended to at least give the navy a fighting chance of injuring the bloody pirates before he lifted the curse.  
At this rate, his entire efforts to catch his enemies off guard with a sudden dose of mortality would be wasted, and everybody aboard the _Dauntless _would be dead.

Everybody including _her_.

He glanced at Will, who had been released from Barbossa's vice-like grip.  
The whelp gave him a cold, sarcastic stare.

Jack simpered back at him, simultaneously trying to conceal his embarrassment about his clever plan backfiring, his keen concern for Lizzie, and his embarrassment about his keen concern.

It wasn't working. Will may have been slow on the uptake about opportune moments, but he was certainly on the ball when it came to relating to people's emotions. It seemed to be his area of expertise.

Jack wondered that _he _hadn't been the one to woo Elizabeth yet. He would definitely have done a much smoother job of it.


	28. Chapter 27

****Sorry for the late update, I've been away. Hope you enjoy this Lizathon of a thought train! More soon, promise.

* * *

Playlist: 'Journey to Fenland' from Snow White and the Huntsman. Awesome track.

* * *

**27**

Elizabeth tied the last knot in her long line of twisted linen.  
Her father was still nattering away from the other side of the locked doors.

She had stopped listening to what he'd had to say as soon as he had uttered the words, "Couldn't be more proud of you."  
Her stomach had turned over at that comment.

**'Journey to Fenland'.**

Wasn't it what she had wanted to hear ever since she had been rescued from drowning, in that awful corset, all those days ago?  
The words that would bring her back into herself. That would steer her away from temptation.

_Actually, I find it all fascinating.  
_Her dear father's frown, his narrowed eyes, as he had gazed down at her.  
_Yes, that's what concerns me._

This thing - whatever it was - that possessed her, that had haunted her ever since childhood - this awful, grasping, kicking, writhing thing that never desisted in its attempts to ruin her - she had finally quelled it.  
Or at least, she had handed herself over to somebody who would quell it for her.

And she felt sick. Sick to the pit of her belly.  
The indefatigable entity that lived within her seethed and screeched and beat at her from the inside.

It wanted to be free.  
_She - _Elizabeth - only wanted her life back.  
She wanted to marry. She wanted children who would be brought up in the best environment, by the best governess, with the best tutoring, and the best food and entertainment and _purpose_ to their lives.

Purpose. What a funny word.  
What was it, anyway? One's purpose?  
What would her children do to make their lives worthwhile?  
What was _she_ going to do?

At the moment her purpose looked to be the wellbeing of her children.  
Children she didn't have yet.  
She couldn't see anything else beyond that point.

She would attend social happenings, wear the finest things, talk the finest talk.  
Be the wife of a Commodore. Perhaps, one day, an Admiral.

She would stay at home, as she had always done. Request to be allowed onto the deck of his ship, once in a while.  
Refrain from telling her darling children stories about pirates and adventure.

So that they would never become like her.  
So that they could never feel the agony that she felt, never witness the bars that every day closed tangibly around them.

So that they could be blind, beautiful fools, and only ever know the bliss of ignorance.

As she was tossing the makeshift rope out of the window, she couldn't stifle a sudden and violent sob.  
It came upon her like an ambush.

The emotion just swelled out of nowhere, crashing upwards like a wave within her chest and filling her throat, until it tightened and jerked horribly.

She knelt, clutching the window pane, feeling as though a hand had reached into her and torn her heart from its very home.  
She had never dared to think past this day. Past this point, when she would accept James' proposal.

Days ago, atop those battlements, with no other interests save marriage and a far off, half-invisible dream of adventure, she would not have been grieved.

Here, now, as she was about to disobey her fiancee's first orders and betray the trust of her father... It all seemed so clear, so vivid, when before it had been a perfect haze.  
For the first time in her life she knew what she was losing.

And the monster that resided in her _soul_, not just her body, was not a monster at all.

She did not know herself, any more than a dumb animal could recognise its own reflection in a glass.  
Elizabeth was the monster.  
She was a husk of herself. She was a physical reincarnation of imprisonment.

She was so blind.  
She had spent all of her young life dreaming about this, and all of the past week resisting everything about it.

Tears were welling hot in her eyes, but she forced herself to swing over the windowsill and lower herself into the longboat awaiting her.

The _Elizabeth _that had been repressing her for so long had agreed to come on this one trip to the island, to make certain that Jack was free. That her debt to him was paid.

That she could shirk all responsibility for herself, place her life in the hands of a man who her father would be _pleased_ with.

Now, she felt that same prison-keeper version of herself balking.  
It tugged at her stomach with compromising guilt, trying desperately to send her back to the Captain's mess.

It knew that she was wavering towards the raging fires that constituted her true self.  
It knew that once she was on that island, her narrow future would be in danger.

It still fought with her, all the way across that stretch of sea.  
She didn't know whose side she was on.

She still didn't know which half of her was right. Only that one burned with a fierce energy of pure longing and emotion, while the other thundered with a stern voice of reason, and religion.

Pirates were hung for their sins. They were sinners.  
They were bad people.  
How did she know that her overpowering lust for freedom wasn't a sin in disguise?

Because it wasn't only freedom that she ached for.  
It was _him_.  
Beyond the pirate facade, she could see a man whose magnetism was so intense that she was breathless even as she rowed towards him.

How did she know that he was a good man?  
Did wanting him make her a bad person?

Who was to say that he was evil, that his lifestyle was against God?  
Who was to say what God wanted, anyway?  
If this desire - this feeling that washed over her with such _purity _and beauty - was so strong, was it God that caused it?

Were her father and James honestly the blameworthy ones?  
Did God look down upon them with wrath, disdaining their restrictions, disapproving of their attitude towards her?

Did she believe in God?  
Was life a game of taking what you could, or was there really a system of judgement in this evasive afterlife they called Heaven?

She reached the shore of the cavern, just as she was reaching a conclusion.

No matter what potential afterlives held, no matter about the great things that made her so bewildered.

What could she survive, and what could she not?

So this was the ultimate question. The question that would determine her future and force her to break bonds, no matter what she decided.

To choose her father, or herself?


	29. Chapter 28

****I'm so sorry for the huge delay. Computer broke and my now ex-boyfriend broke up with me. Not a good time to be in the middle of a romantic fanfiction!

* * *

**28.**

"It's Elizabeth!"  
Gibbs and the crew, looking rather worse for wear, cheered enthusiastically as she burst into the brig.

"Where are the keys?"  
"Hard to starboard!" the parrot squawked helpfully. Cotton nodded, and pointed toward Elizabeth's right, where a great set of iron keys were indeed hanging.

"How has it been?" she asked, half in genuine concern, half for the sake of conversation, as she fumbled for the right one in the lock.  
"Damp, and smelly." Gibbs grunted, "Aye, I can't wait to make a decent ship of her again."  
"As soon as we save Jack and Will, you can get right on that."

There was no reply, but she didn't think to question it.  
She was having enough troubles in her own mind.

Right now, the grotesque pirates could be relieved of their curse. And William could be lying with his throat open. And Jack -

It had never occurred to her that Jack may be in danger of death too.  
Cold fingers of anxiety traced a line down her back.

But Jack was smart. He would be bartering his way out of this.

How _had_ he intended to barter his ship back? She had never thought to ask herself that, either.  
The _Pearl _for Will's blood, was that it? Blood that Barbossa already had within his reach?  
Or for plunder?  
... Or for the death of the navy that was currently waiting to ambush them?

Jack would never - he just wasn't heartless enough to forfeit the lives of decent men, not even to mortal pirates who could be defeated.

_Mortal _pirates. If they really were mortal by now. What if the curse hadn't been lifted?  
What if James was facing the supernatural crew of criminals he had scoffed at so readily over dinner?  
What if he really was in danger?  
What if Jack had put him there on purpose?

The right key finally fitted, and she swung the door open to free Jack's faithful men.  
Did they think that he was capable of such atrocity?

Any way she tried to look at it clearly, Jack had committed an unforgivable crime.  
Either Will was dead, or James was dead.  
Perhaps both.

As her companions rushed up to the deck with her, and helped her to send the two skeletal pirate guards overboard, she turned to look back at the _Dauntless_.  
Perhaps, now, it was more important that she tried to defend her fiancee than run after a lot of villains in order to ensure just one villain's escape.

Her brilliant plan to get Jack out of her life - out of harm's way - didn't make sense any more.

She delayed as the crew patted one another's backs and congratulated themselves on reclaiming their ship.  
She argued with herself that to go back to James now was fruitless. She could do nothing but die with him, fighting invincible monsters.  
The only way to make sure everybody was safe was to go to the caves. To make sure that William's blood was paid to the casket. To make sure that he was alive. And that the pirates were really alive, too.

The logic was all there. It made sense to go to the island.  
But something else was pulling her, and not by her head, but by her heart and her body.

And she suddenly realised - awful that it was - that she was going to find Jack no matter what. If he had managed to murder William and take down the navy with an immortal gang of vagabonds, all for the sake of a ship, she still wouldn't be able to turn away. She would always follow him.

He would be on the receiving end of her everlasting hatred, her venemous words, her beatings, her scolding. He would never be rid of the guilt that she pressed upon him.  
But she would still be there, beside him. Because she couldn't possibly be anywhere else.

She didn't have control over the way they magnetised. She could only allow herself to be dragged towards him, time and time again, helpless under his sway, knowing that he too was helpless under her's.

She had been a fool to think that she could marry James.

She had been an absolute fool ever since she had fallen into the sea, in that stupid yellow dress, and the other half of her soul had dived in to rescue her without even knowing who she was.

_"Wha's there to understand? I get me Pearl back, we save the whelp - I mean William - and off we goes, savvy? All the way to the horizon, you an' me, an' me crew, an' me ship."_

_"What about prospects? What would I do with myself? There's all sorts of hazards, Jack, for a woman like me. Rape, death by the sword, death by hanging, my father's reputation... It's a risk, Jack. It's a great big ugly risk. And I can't take it, I can't."_

_"You want this more than you've ever wanted anything. You've been dreaming of it forever. You've got such spirit, girl! It's been there ever since you was born, you've got a thousand thousand fights hiding away inside you, in them fists of your's. Why don't you let a couple loose, eh? Why not try for freedom? It's all you 'ave, in this world, is a little freedom to recompense the rest."_

Yes. They were bound together by one true thing, if nothing else. He was her freedom. And freedom raged within them both.

In light of everything she had seen, everything she'd felt and thought, his words were the only words that had ever echoed clearly and deeply within her.

_My father's reputation_. Somehow the phrase now sounded flimsy, snobbish, grotesque.  
Yes, there were consequences, and she would have to live with her father's shame forever. But shame wasn't the same as having the life drained from you. Shame didn't take your soul away.

Her father would have to understand, or disown her, or both.  
And as for James... there were plenty of _fine women _in Port Royal.

For now, she needed to concentrate on saving his life so that he could go and find one.

"All of you with me." she cried suddenly, making for another longboat. Between the two vessels, the whole crew could come and help her, "Will and Jack are that cave and we must save them. Ready? And heave!"

She pulled, but it was incredibly heavy. Because nobody was helping.

"Please, I need your help! Come on!"  
"Any port in the storm." said the parrot.  
"Cotton's right, we've got the Pearl." Gibbs translated.

Elizabeth stared at him, not sure whether she was going to punch him squarely in the jaw.

"And what about Jack, you're just going to _leave_ him?"  
"Jack owes us a ship." someone piped up.  
"And there's the code to consider."

"The _code_? You're _pirates_!" she cried in sheer frustration, "_Hang the code_, and _hang the rules_! They're more like - guidelines - anyway."

"I'm real sorry, missy, but that's not the point." Gibbs was standing firm for once. Perhaps because he had a crew behind him, "If anyone can get out of a situation it's Jack. Knowing us, we won't be so lucky. He'll end up sailing off with the _Pearl _and but a handful of us, while the rest are left to die or rot."

"It's nice to see you have such confidence in your captain." she spat back, voice all cold and ice.  
"Well, your opinion don't really matter, no offence intended. He'd never leave you behind."

Something about those words only made her more determined.

"You're not pirates at all, you're cowards!"  
"Nay. The two go hand in hand, Miss Elizabeth, if ye've been observing hard enough."

There was no convincing them, and time was running out.  
She could end up arriving on that island to find Jack, Will and the entire navy dead already.

"If _you _have been observing hard enough -" she stormed to the railing where her own boat was waiting below, "The only famous pirates in the world are known for their courage. And I see no real pirates here."

"What do you know of real pirates, Governor's daughter?" a voice rose from the rear.  
She shot a murderous glare into the small crowd, who all visibly took a step back.

"I've spent my whole life being one. Even I didn't know it, but I know it now. When we next meet it had better be in fairer circumstances, for your sakes."

With that, she jumped lightly over the side of the ship and clambered down, muttering "bloody pirates" under her breath all the way.


	30. Chapter 29

**29.**

She finally reached the island, only managing to drag her boat a little way onto shore. Her breath came in quiet gasps and her heart was racing ahead of her.  
The only concern she currently had was for Jack. _Jack alive, Jack breathing, Jack not in imminent danger._

On her way from the _Pearl_ she had spotted a flock of longboats floating just behind the rocks, apparently waiting to ambush the pirates once they rushed out of the caves. Her entire body had tingled and chilled as she thought of all the armed, immortal enemies who may soon be emerging - whether Jack had given away the navy's presence would determine their advantage.

But at least James wouldn't be on the _Dauntless _where he would have been more vulnerable to close-quarters combat.

Even this more positive thought made her frown deeply.  
All she seemed to be doing was worrying about keeping people alive, so that she didn't have to bear any other obligation to them.  
Specifically men, and her obligations of loyalty.

_But not any more_, she thought fiercely to herself as she crept towards the vast cave._ No more running_.

The sounds of battle rang sharply in her ears.  
Without thinking much about what she was doing, she sprang straight over the great slope of gold and into the midst of the fight, grabbing the first thing that could be feasibly used to defend herself - a heavy staff would have to do.

Her first steps were straight towards Jack, who was in such fierce combat with Barbossa that their swords were blurred lines, frequently emitting the clashing noises of metal on metal.

Forcing herself to stop and assess the situation, however, she noted that Jack seemed to be doing alright for himself, whereas William was having a great deal of trouble dealing with three pirates.

"I'm gonna teach you the meaning of pain!" a stubby rascal was leering, as he bent over Will's vulnerable form.  
Infuriated by his threat, and also the horribly stereotypical way he put it, Elizabeth leapt towards the pair, wielding the staff as best she could.

"Do you like pain?" she cried as she brought the weapon down upon the villain, who crumpled under its stroke, "Try wearing a corset."

William smiled slightly at her comment, as she pulled him up using the rod.

She wanted to say something about returning the favour, and that she was glad to rescue him - and that, since she wouldn't be welcomed in Port Royal after this, mention her gratitude for their long friendship. But the words didn't seem right, not here. This wasn't the time to thank him for his role in bringing her and Jack together.

Instead she dared to glance up at the two sparring men, and noticed with a trace of horror that Jack suddenly turned into a skeleton whenever the moonlight hit him.

She was certain that he hadn't done that on the island.

"Whose side is Jack on?" she asked, bewildered, trying to justify his share in the curse, what possible reason he could have had.  
"At the moment?" Will half-laughed.

But now she had it. Of course Jack wouldn't get into a fight with Barbossa without taking precautions.

"Where are the rest of them?"  
"The pirates? They went on foot to the _Dauntless_." Will replied gravely.

Elizabeth didn't know what to make of that, but it sounded bad.  
James could be fighting to the death right now.

More pirates were closing in on them, and she found herself using her gut instincts, fighting alongside her blacksmith friend, trying to muster up all of the skills he had casually shown her over the years. The staff was hardly a sword, but he used it deftly.

Between them, they managed to drive the stick through all three of their opponents' ribcages.  
Will thrust a live grenade into the torso of the small, disgusting vagabond just before they pushed the struggling trio out of the moonlight.

"No fair!" their enemy squeaked, and that was that.  
Bits of bloodied limbs flopped around on the floor, useless and grotesque.

Finally, she could run to Jack's rescue.  
But Jack was always a step ahead, and this time was no different.

She caught a glance of him slicing his own hand open on his sword, and then a single golden shimmer tinged with red flew past her, into Will's outstretched palm.

She was still stumbling towards the only person in the room she could currently think about, her head swirling with everything she wanted to tell him, her only aim to put herself between him and Barbossa, to stop the fighting now that the curse would be lifted.

An ominous click brought her up sharp, and she found herself looking down the barrel of the other captain's gun. His expression was one of blank, cold purpose.

He was going to pull the trigger.

The echoing, heavy thud of a shot followed just seconds after - Elizabeth reeled slightly, wondering where the pain would flourish, hoping to god it wasn't fatal.  
But the pain didn't come. She looked up slowly, and all the breath drained from her lungs and left her helpless as she finally registered the image before her.

Jack stood, holding a still-smoking pistol pointed straight at Barbossa.  
His coal-black eyes were aflame, narrowed in what could only be described as loathing triumph. His head was tilted menacingly, purposefully. The arm that held the gun aloft was still rigid.

The sight of him defending her - finally taking up arms for her - made her shiver with the most powerful intensity she had ever felt in her life.  
He was, in this moment, truly her's. Her protector. She would never feel so close to him as she did in this moment, standing even at a distance.

And now, finally, she could feel his strength, his ability to rule over her - and she wasn't being given a choice in the matter. She owed him her life. She was a pirate, and always had been, but now only through his power, through his demand.

He had finally forced her to become his own, with an irrefutable, masculine hand. The hand that still held the pistol. His pistol. The pistol that he had carried with him for years, for his one intended revenge.

And he'd spent his one chance on her.

Jack lowered the gun as swiftly as he'd raised it.  
Then he uttered one phrase that secured the bond between them forever, beyond any doubt.

"Don't touch my girl."

He didn't even look at her, made no move to acknowledge the fact that she was swooning where she stood. But his voice was rough and infinitely tender all at once, and she knew that it was taking all of his willpower to make himself so vulnerable to her.

He didn't know the change that had overcome her heart. He didn't know that her future had altered before her very eyes.  
He was simply laying his heart out for her, regardless of whom she chose.  
And to him, who she married didn't matter.  
He knew who she really belonged to.

Barbossa was staring back at Jack with equal bewilderment, face wrinkled in disdain.  
"Ten years you carry that pistol, and now you waste your shot! On a hussy!"

"He didn't waste it."

Everybody turned, everybody stared. Even Jack.  
Will slowly dropped the two bloodstained Aztec gold pieces from his open palm.

There was the chink of coins, and then a deeper, resounding thrumming that filled the entire cavern.  
Barbossa ripped aside his jacket.

Crimson was already pouring from the very real wound that pierced his heart. It soaked into his shirt, dark like wine, and drained all the life from his ghastly face.

His mouth trembled slightly, as he motioned to speak.

"I _feel_." he murmured, and for a second Elizabeth remembered the wind on one's face, and the spray of the sea, and the warmth of a woman's flesh.

"... Cold."  
As his last utterance turned her reaction from abhorrence to sudden pity, the legendary pirate slowly fell -like a tall tree, straight and true - into the waiting arms of his hoarded gold.

He lay like a dying fish on a yellow shore, chest heaving for a few moments longer. And then he was gone.


	31. Chapter 30

****Playlist today: 'The Long Road Back' from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

**Important: ****When you play this track, play it from 1:20 minutes in. The beginning is entirely not meant for this chapter.**

* * *

**30.**

There was a gap in time - a closeness of atmosphere and a stillness that struggled to chain them all, as it had chained Barbossa to the floor forever.  
Elizabeth couldn't tear herself away from the moment. Her vision was filled with long yellowed fingernails, ragged garments and scraggly hair, with the sickly sheen of dead eyes.

A breath of ghostly air brushed past her, from some hidden tunnel or crevice, as though a soul were passing out of the cavern into the cool moonlit night.

**'The Long Road Back'.**

The very space around her tingled, as though even she could feel the curse's effect.  
Out there, aboard the _Dauntless _or the longboats, their enemies would be dropping with dismayed expressions, blood suddenly surging up, flesh regrowing on supernatural bones.

It was over.  
Finally, the instant also passed - the heavy pressure of the air lifted, she found that she could move again.

Hesitant, wavering, she lifted her gaze from the deceased pirate, to the live one standing just metres from her. Her heart palpitated like the wings of a frantic bird. Surely it would burst and kill her, it was strained so with the weight of her passion.

His onyx halos were like great, dark maelstroms, an impossible force pulling in everything they swept over - and they were on her, touching her own eyes with a look that owned and controlled.  
His tanned visage was utterly devoid of emotion. He gave nothing away.  
But those obsidian circles called, stronger than the summons of any Aztec gold, stronger than the sea.

And she was flying towards them, as though the sheer power of that call had lifted her straight off her feet. She had reached him, she was at the centre of the storm, and everything went dark.

She had buried her face into his collar and simply stood, shivering, in his arms.  
He was a god no longer, but a man - _her _man - and his embrace was infinitely strong and sheltering as his hands traced lines over her shoulders and down her arms.

William coughed quietly, and his footsteps echoed towards the other end of the cavern.

Jack's fingers slowly explored the grooves of her throat, her collar, moved to tuck her hair behind her ear. Each movement of his rope-worn, rough hands triggered a tidal wave of golden warmth that rushed from the top of her head all the way down to her wet boots.

"_Jack_." she breathed, not even to warn him to stop. Just for the pleasure of saying his name.  
The urge to encase his gorgeous countenance between her hands and press those wry, smooth lips against her own was overpowering. Her fingertips clutched at his weathered waistcoat to prevent themselves from wandering.

"Where's my thank you?" he murmured, mockingly, but his voice was gruff and barely audible, spoken into her hair. She swore she could feel his mouth momentarily pursing against her head, in a shadow of a kiss.

"You already know." she replied just as softly.  
"Well, then."

Her chin was tilted up by the gentle caress of his knuckles. She wouldn't be able to stop him once he claimed her lips, as he had claimed her soul.  
Instead, she balled her fists and felt all of her rage and disdain towards him flooding back.

"You swine!" she hit his chest as hard as she could within his grasp, "I could kill you! You sent those bastards out still immortal! Who knows how many are dead now?"  
"Ah." he retaliated immediately, grabbing the offending wrist, "Of course, I should have done all I could ter protect yer beloved _Commodore_. Excuse me, that I couldn't foresee every minor detail of me very sketchy plans."

She slapped him hard across the face.  
"You know why I'm here!" she fairly shouted at him as he grasped that wrist too, almost hurting her, "And I'm not here about James."

He held her there for a moment, their noses inches apart, his raven black orbs boring holes into her.

"I know who I am now." her body was trembling so that her words weren't half as strong as she intended, "And I know what I want."

His expression hardened, and for a moment she feared he was going to send her away.

Then, so suddenly that her breath was crushed from her, he let go her wrists, threw an arm around her waist and pulled her close into his body. His free hand found the back of her neck, sliding through her loose hair - though when his lips came crashing down to meet her mouth in a fierce, astonishing kiss, she didn't need the extra pressure from his palm to encourage her.

Moaning aloud, she flung herself further into his hold, draping her forearms around his shoulders and clinging to them with all her might.

There was more in this than there had ever been on their island.  
This was desperate, and heartfelt, and real. This was the first hint of what it was to be in love.

"Lizzie." he gasped, freeing himself from their breathtaking union, and pausing in thought as he leant his forehead against her's, "Don't ever scare me like that again, understand?"  
She pulled herself out of his arms, leaving just one hand in his.  
Her smile was so sweet and genuine that it left his beating heart agape and bleeding.

She was his. Finally, she was his.

"You're still a swine." she jibed, so elated and light-headed that she found herself playfully ducking away from him, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, eyes narrowed cheekily.

"Elizabeth!"

She jumped, and turned. She knew that voice, she would know it anywhere.  
It was her father.  
No, her father - and James - and a small guard of surviving soldiers.

They stood just at the mouth of the cave where they had clambered over the gold pile, their faces open with astonishment and - unsurprisingly, intense anger.

Her head snapped back around to look for Jack, her eyes wide with shock.  
His expression only served to cut her more deeply.

"Elizabeth, what on earth are you doing here?" the Commodore's stern tones were perhaps even scarier than the Governor's.  
"You wouldn't listen to me!" she attempted to match the steel in his voice, unconsciously blocking Jack with her body, "I had to make sure the curse was lifted, or you'd all be dead."

They didn't have an answer to that; they had obviously seen the skeletons for themselves. But apparently, it didn't change the fact that she was in deep trouble.

"Secure her."  
James uttered the words with an iciness that shocked her, his countenance a perfect image of justice. Indignant, immediate justice.

She was flanked and seized by two sombre obedients, shrieking her dismay and outrage.  
There was the sound of unsheathed metal, and she knew that _he _was still ready to defend her, be it from Barbossa or the law.

"Disarm him!"  
"Don't make me use this, gents. I've already killed today fer her sake." his growl reverberated like the voice of a supernatural force around the cavern.

"This is outrageous!" her father stormed in return, "Bring Elizabeth here, for goodness' sakes, and put that devil in chains!"  
Jack snarled in frustration. "Where's yer crew when ye need 'em?"

"Jack." she struggled to turn and look at him as her captors carried her bodily away.  
Their eyes met for just a second, and she supposed that he understood what she was trying to tell him. That his crew were already escaping, that it was no good fighting. There was no way out for them.

He understood, alright. Between the gaps in which he was blocked from her view by her assailants, she could see his shoulders sagging, hear his sword clattering to the stone ground.

Then he, too, was surrounded and taken.  
Back to the _Dauntless_. Back to the slave ship.

"'Lizabeth." he called, no longer almighty and unwavering like the tones of some indestructible warrior, but quite, quite broken.

He had nothing else to say. Nothing that could comfort her without giving himself away to their new opponents. Not if he wanted to see her again - not if there was a chance of their freedom in the future.

She tried to stem the salt tears as she was pushed into the longboat, hiding her face behind her sleeve.  
How she ever thought that she could get away with this, she didn't know.


	32. Chapter 31

****Sorry about the long delay. I am too busy at the moment to think of anything to do with fiction. Bloody life getting in the way!

* * *

**31.**

Her imprisonment wasn't in the brig, but it may as well have been.  
At least she would have had Jack for company.

In a fair-sized, uncomfortably luxurious cabin wedged between her father's and the Commodore's quarters, she was left with the two sombe guards at her door, and a distinct lack of longboats.

It was taking every ounce of self-control she had not to scream aloud, to throw clothes and drawers and hangings across the room until everything about the too-perfect prison, the reflection of her life behind and before her, was crumpled and destroyed.

She floated upon a small, unsheltered island of rebellion. Watching the great storms that were to sweep her up into oblivion of misery, barefaced and inescapable. Feeling their warning winds already catching at her loose hair, threatening to turn it into immaculate curls once again.

But she wouldn't make a sound. She wouldn't give herself away.

Nobody but she and Jack knew what that tiny patch of sand meant, or of their far-flung plans to some day return to it, and find it a safe harbour, with the _Pearl _awaiting them at last in the bay.

She let her snaking thoughts linger momentarily over Will.  
Would he help them escape?  
Would he do his duty?

Perhaps, even now, Jack was forming some sort of plot. Perhaps William was there with him, playing his role, for her sake. Maybe even for Jack's sake. If only she could be there, to hear words, to untangle at least some of the difficulty. To comfort and be comforted.

"Leave us."

She sat bolt upright in the chair she had been hunched upon.  
That voice was not a welcome one.

He strode in without a pause, the door closing behind him, eyes scouring the cabin for signs of mischief or escape.  
They rested briefly upon her stiff, unrelenting form, and then retreated to the floor.

"Elizabeth." he greeted her firmly.  
She didn't dignify his presence with a reply, and he shifted a little uncomfortably where he stood.

There were so many things that he could come out with at this moment. Things that would make him look tyrannical and brutish. Things that would make him seem weak.

He offered her none of these.

Instead, he tightened his jaw a little before uttering one thing that finally made her feel remorse. As though she had truly broken her word to a gentleman and loyal lover.

"I'm not certain I have ever met a woman before you who could find such a valid excuse for dismissing her fiancee's first request."

She finally looked up at him, at his regal sharpness, his immaculate organisation of person. Everything about him was visibly perfect. The good man, the wise soldier, the tender admirer.

What was he guilty of?  
Of disbelieving a ghost story. Of being anxious for her safety.  
Of being the future she no longer wanted.

She felt a sudden, awful surge of pity for this unfortunate contender. He didn't know half the game that he was playing. Didn't suspect the vast competition that outstripped him.

"It wasn't an excuse." she muttered finally, managing to look him in the eye despite the dreadful falsehood she was telling, "It was a matter of life and death. Your life."

"Yes." he mused, withdrawing his gaze as he laughed shortly to himself, "Yes, I suppose so."

He sighed, then, a sigh too mournful to be missed. Stepping tentatively into the cabin, he descended to one knee before her, gazing too earnestly up into her eyes.

"Elizabeth... I feel that this has changed something between us."  
She couldn't bring herself to disagree. Only bit her lip and stared anxiously into his face.

_I love Jack_, she barely whispered even to herself. The revelation was not shocking, not in any way, but she still caught her breath as she thought it. In real words. In admittance. _I really am in love with Captain Jack Sparrow, James. Of course something has changed between us._

He could see the words dammed up inside her, leaking through in her expression, in the glassy sheen of her dark orbs.

"You won't talk to me." he said flatly.  
"I'm not the fine woman you wanted, James."  
"How so?"  
"I'm just not."  
"Will you let me be the judge of that?"

She shook her head solemnly, concentrating on inhaling and exhaling, trying to be calm.

"I wouldn't be an obedient wife. I wouldn't be suitable for a man of your position."  
"_Position_? Elizabeth, you are a Governor's daughter. I have no position beside you."  
"I never wanted it. I wasn't made for it." she struggled to explain without explaining.

He drew a long, patient breath, and then took her hand and kissed it.  
"You must be so confused. You have been through so much." he excused her softly, "And now isn't the time to be discussing it. I see that now."

"James -"  
"No more." he stated, a little more rigidly, as he rose and moved towards the door, "When we reach Port Royal and you are reestablished in your household - when you are yourself again - we shall talk as we should."

_Coward_, she accused herself as she shrugged noncommitally and nodded.

"Will you dine with your father and I in the morning?"  
Another shrug.  
"Very well. Until then - well." she could almost hear a smile in his voice, "Just try not to run away."

He admired her for it. She was ready to run at the slightest opportunity, and he genuinely admired her for it.  
She slumped in the chair as soon as he was gone, hiding her face in her hands, a picture of perfect despair.

Lord knew what the next few days would bring.


	33. Chapter 32

**32**

___So hoist up the John B's sails, see how the main sail sets,  
Call for the captain ashore, and let me go home.  
Let me go home, I want to go home,  
Well I feel so break up, I want to go home._

* * *

Back to where this whole flaming wild goose chase shenanigan had started.  
Back to Port Royal's dingy prison.  
This time with no scummy bilge rats for company, neither.

And more importantly, no dog.

After his last escape it must have been removed, and the keys handed over to a more wary guardian.  
So, this was it. This was where he waited for the gallows.

It would have been alright if he could just have seen 'Lizabeth, one last time. She may have even come up with a plan of sorts. Legged it out of there with him.  
But there'd been no sight of her, not since they'd been parted on the deck of the _Dauntless _as it turned tail and fled from the brooding, solitary Isle de Muerte.

She was probably locked away in the Governor's house somewhere, in her own form of prison.  
Like the pirate she was.

Condemned to a life of law-abiding, submissive, dutiful marriage. Drowning in swathes of fine silks, choking in corsets, weighed down by jewelry paid for fair and square.

There was nothing quite so bad as jewels that had been justly bought.

If he could swing from the rope knowing she would at least be free, he'd feel a whole lot better about it.  
Didn't mean he would die to see her happy. Hadn't had the time to fall that hard yet.  
But still. She _mattered _to him.

And it was a very confusing business.

Just at the point when he'd had his hands on the gold, on the ship, on the title - just when she had finally changed her mind, when she was going to be his, as she ought to be – it had been ripped from his hands and all put to waste. Even his life put to waste.

There was more than one type of criminal in the world, that he knew for sure.

The door above was cracked open.  
Footsteps on the stairs.  
He stiffened as he realised they weren't the heavy, solid falls of a military man – instead the softest sound of gathered fabric rustled over the stone, and the steps were small and keen, stealthy, desperately swift.

Then she came into view, and she was wearing a gown so much like the one he'd rescued her in, those few weeks ago. Her hair was pulled up and curled and perfected, her face flawless with a touch of paint.

But her dark eyes were stormy, and wide as he'd ever seen them, and her rosy full lips were parted as she breathed with exertion, and her petite, beautiful hands were balled into fists, quaking with nerves.

Lizzie. She was so there, under that mask of Elizabeth. Shining through like an inner goddess, indomitable, unstoppable.  
And she had come for him. Only him.

"Jack." she exhaled, glancing behind her fleetingly before hurling herself at his cell.


	34. Chapter 33

The single soundtrack to this chapter is** 'One Day' from the At World's End** **musical score**.

START from 1:32 minutes into the song. Otherwise you will get a bunch of music that doesn't fit.

* * *

**33**

_The sails are furled, our work is done  
Leave her, Jacky, leave her  
And now on shore we'll have our fun  
It's time for you to leave her._

* * *

**'One Day'.**

He grasped her shaking forearms in his hands as they met simultaneously against the cruel bars.  
"Jack." she whispered again, as he inclined his head to seal their lips together. Her mouth was rosy warm, soft as oriental silks even as it pressed desperately closer into his, moving in perfect synchronisation with his anxious, drawn, repeated kisses.

One hand moved automatically to her throat, caressing the baby smooth skin with his own callous thumb, his fingers twisting through her golden ringlets and squeezing the back of her neck, urging her even nearer. She moaned just audibly into his caress.

This was all there ever was, and all there ever would be.  
When he went to the gallows, he would be thinking of this moment, and all would be well.

Her knuckles were clenched as she gripped the front of his shirt - she was quivering as though brimming with electricity. He could feel it crackling between them, in the slim spaces between their bodies, on the tips of his fingers, and when she pulled away to look at him there was a whole lightning storm brewing behind her glassy eyes.

"Jack, I have to tell you," her voice was high and trembled despite her fierce countenance, "and you're likely going to die soon, so I won't have to be embarrassed for too long."

A jet of warmth swirled through him and made the corners of his mouth twist up without even thinking. His chest seemed to be blossoming from the inside; that was the only way he could describe it. As though an immense, indefinable something were unfolding and billowing invisibly within him, his heart and soul burning with white fire at its centre.

"Dearie," he drew her eternally tantalising lips to him again, with such tenderness that her shoulders jerked in an involuntary sob, "ye don't need ter say it."

He_ did _want her to, though. In other circumstances - without the shadow of impending death standing over them - he would have drawn this out for so long, would have made the most of every delicious day of the chase, of the waiting. She was the only one worth waiting for.

Any form of affection from his various other women - eugh. Time to make a swift exit.

But this sharp, feral, beautiful, classy baggage he could pursue for an eternity, as long as he knew that those certain words were on the horizon. As long as one day, _one_ day she would truly love him.

Now, separated physically and socially from her, soon to be parted in a much more permanent sense, he needed time to speed up. He needed their future in an instant.  
Their future. How could he ever deny, now, that he wanted his future to be her?

He had invested so much, unwittingly given so much of himself to her, his thoughts and his desires. Now all would go to waste, and the parts of herself that she had given him, she would have to take back or mourn alone, in the privacy of their mutual secret.

"How will you get on?" he murmured half to himself, leaning his forehead against her own.

"I don't want to think about it."  
"Neither do I, darling."  
"I'm on my way to see William. I don't have much time before they notice I'm gone. But perhaps he can help us. He has to."

"He owes me nothing, luv. Less than nothing."  
"And me. But he's my best friend, and a good swordsman."  
"And he would stand up before the Guv'ner and battle a whole navy for my sakes, eh?"  
"I don't know." she looked thoroughly downcast, "But I will, whether it does any good or not. I would be arguing with father now... but without the element of surprise there's no chance."

"They'd string you up alongside me. Don't even think it."  
"I'm not going to stand there and watch you die." her eyes accused him with such force - of course her honour, her loyalty, was going to be so much stronger than her fear. It was why he loved her so.

"Yer the bravest, most glorious lass in all the Caribbean, luv. I would 'ave followed you to the ends of the earth an' back. But I can't let ye do that." he planted light kisses down her temple, her cheek, her jaw.

"Try and stop me, when you're stuck with your hands behind your back."  
"'Lizabeth. _Promise _me you won't put yerself in danger." he forced her to stare him square in the eyes, attempting to soften her resolve with one of his looks, "I shall only be able to face this properly knowing yer going ter be alright. An' that includes yer real future."

"I won't marry James." she sighed, "Not after all of this."  
"Good. At least that's settled. Now just the small matter of surviving."  
"I don't want to, without you."  
"Let's not be melodramatic, dearie."

"I wish it was just that." she couldn't stop herself, now - heavy, ripe tears budded and fell from those dark wells and were lost in the fabric of Jack's sleeves.

He tried to console her, to clear away her haze of agony with his mouth, but she shoved him in the chest. She was going to be taken seriously, while he could still see and hear and feel for her.

"There can't ever be anybody else, Jack." her tone was hardened with sheer certainty and anger, "I grew up knowing you. And now you've gone and exceeded my expectations. You're the only stupid man who's ever cared that I should be true to my nature - I've only ever been myself because of you. You don't know what it's like - you don't know how much -"

She calmed herself while he regarded her wordlessly.

"We're so alike, you and I." she muttered eventually, looking away to her left, as though the sight of him alone would break her again, "You're more than a man, Jack, you're more than the thing I love most. You're my way out of here. I can't move without you."

"Yer going ter have to." he pulled her chin towards him, boring holes into her eyes, "Escape to Tortuga. The _Pearl _will make port there sometime, if not, some other crew. You can go wherever you want ter, work yer way up. I can see you going so far... Captain Swann."

"You really believe that?"  
"Darling, I've dreamt of it since the day we first met."

"It still won't be the same without you." remembering the cold reality of it, the hard fact of death, that it was coming for Jack, sent her into fresh tears, "I can cope with leaving my father. I can cope with anything except you not being there with me. I can't - I just don't want anything to do with it if you're gone."

"Better than being cornered here, in a docile law-abiding life."  
"It wouldn't matter what kind of life, it would all be the same. The whole world will level out. Nothing will have any value. I loved the idea of freedom through you, Jack, and if you leave I won't even love that."

He smiled sadly down at her. "If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger." **

She nodded helplessly, and he folded her into his arms as best he could with the bars between them.  
"So this is the effect I have." he chuckled quietly, "If only I'd known."

"I won't let you die." she said fiercely, at last, and tugged herself away from him.  
"It's not all in your hands, dearie."  
"It's all I have to hold onto, don't you dare take it from me."  
"Aye. Well, best of luck to you. Really." he grinned wryly, "I sincerely hope you succeed."

She took his face in her sweet, delicate palms and kissed him once, long and despairing.  
"Look for me tomorrow."  
"Ye'll be the only one I look for, luv."  
"Goodbye."

"I believe the better term is _farewell_." he called after her as she ascended the stairs, "Goodbye sounds a little too permanent, don't you think."

She didn't reply, only closed the door behind her.

* * *

** Jack is reciting a line from Wuthering Heights, spoken by Cathy about Heathcliff. Unfortunately for my sense of historical accuracy Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, a good hundred or so years after Pirates of the Caribbean is set. But I had to include it because it's such a beautiful phrase, and fits exactly how this fiery, freedom-hungry Elizabeth feels about Jack in my mind. It also shows how well-read Jack is for a pirate, something we all love about him.


	35. Chapter 34

****Playlist: **'Honor Him' from Gladiator.**

* * *

**34**

_We're homeward bound, and I hear the sound,  
So heave the capstan, make it spin round.  
Our anchor's aweigh and our sails they are set,  
And the gal I'm leaving I leave with regret._

* * *

__**'Honor Him'.**

_His kisses are like golden dew from rare flowers. They taste like life, though he is about to die.  
Perhaps we all live most at our deaths; or at least the best of us._

_Dangles the hangman's noose._

_He smells of salty spray and freedom and cool breezes. His coat is rough under my hands. He speaks like a river, and his voice echoes waves grinding pebble shores. A delicate heat cocoons me._

_Soft, soft his fingers, my rising chest. Soft his breath, softly his soul.  
Lips closing around mine, warm sheer skin, pressing love with molten movement._

_Do we kiss because our lips are the most velvet, the most delicious parts?  
The reflection of other vulnerable places, creating universes of intimacy, promises of more to come. But there is no more._

_He dangles from the hangman's noose._

_He whispers words I won't remember. I only know the keen twisting agony wrenching through, the need to scream, the need to stop. He will be gone, and that is the end of everything._

_Nothing exists but his non-existence. There is no world. It was swept over long ago._

_My love swings with no motion, my love dangles from the hangman.  
I am a gap in the world._

_Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you._

_I cannot live without my life.  
I cannot live without my soul._

_He dangles from the hangman's noose, but I am the one who chokes._

_It is unutterable._


	36. Chapter 35

****PLAYLIST: 'Duduk of the North' from Gladiator.  
Seriously, it's the best accompaniment yet. Do use it.

* * *

**35**

_The ship's underway and the weather is fine  
The skipper's down aft hanging out other lines  
The crew are asleep and the sea is at rest  
And I'm singing this song to the one I love best_

* * *

Elizabeth jerked awake, clawing sheets. Her face was bathed in moisture, a sob halfway from her throat.  
She had been sobbing for an age. She could tell from the rawness and the deep throes that still washed over her.

She rolled onto her side and took in a gasping, shuddering breath, feeling the pain expanding in her heart, feeding off the air.

**'Duduk of the North'.**

It came out again in an overwhelming, involuntary wail - her own voice was alien to her.

The dream had splintered her remaining courage, edged her grief with the power of unconscious fear, cut her right to the bones of her mind. She couldn't move, couldn't think. Only whimper and writhe.

Her entire torso prickled and seared with waves of infliction so strong they were physical. Her skin, her organs rebelled against the information that her mind couldn't block out.

He was going to die.

_No, he wasn't._

He was maybe going to die.

If he died?

But he couldn't. He simply couldn't.

_But what if he did?_

She was getting louder. Her father would hear soon, and rush to see what the commotion was about.  
Because he didn't, couldn't know, nobody could.

At least, not until the moment she stepped out to scream his name, to try and save him.  
To _succeed _in saving him.

Or to fail.

Because as far as William was concerned, Jack was a dead man.  
She squeezed and squeezed her eyelids together until they hurt, and shoved her face into a pillow so that she could cry freely.

_"You won't even try to help him?"  
She could feel the first of many tears rising already, finally breaking through her shocked defenses._

_He looked at her as though she were unstable, as though she had just asked him to put a sword through his own heart.  
"For a man who forced me into piracy, led me along with myths about my father - a man with no principles?"_

_"You know he has so much more than principles, Will."  
"He has no decency."  
"He loves me! Isn't that decent enough for you?"  
"One fleeting passion is not enough to redeem a life of theft and deceit."  
"You sound just like James. Listen to yourself - you're all cold at heart."  
"Listen to you! You sound like a simpering scullery maid!"_

_She slapped him hard, then. He deserved it._

_"I can't explain the things I feel for Jack. Not even to you. I'm not ordinary, I don't have ordinary thoughts. You've known all the time we've been friends."  
"Are we friends?"  
"We won't be, if you betray me like this."  
"You consort with pirates and lecture me about betrayal?"_

_She paced in sheer desperate frustration._

_"Your father was a pirate, don't you still believe in him?"  
"I'm not sure."  
"Will, __**please**__.Why are you being so righteous? It's not a case of black and white, and you know it - Mr. Gibbs is a pirate, your father was against Jack's mutiny - you wouldn't condemn them to death! You wouldn't!"_

_"It's not up to me. It's up to the law and he chose to break it. They all did."  
"This isn't about the law, this is about your revenge, because he gave you hope."_

_"And what if it is?" he in his turn stormed about, "Did you think of my pain? My father - he was the thing that held me to the earth." his voice had dropped to a choke, "Even if I would never have found him, I would have dreamt of him, as a model for my life. Now he's a criminal __**and **__dead. Jack Sparrow is a manipulative, sly blackguard and he has you around his little finger -"_

_"You haven't a clue what he's done for me, his concern for me. You can't judge one side of a coin."  
"I really am sorry, but it's better that he dies than abducts you and __ruins__you. You have too much life to live for that. I can't allow you to become another of his whores."_

_She tried to say, "It's not like that."  
Instead the words bubbled and died away as they passed her lips, half-formed, and she finally crumbled. Her knees were buckling and her fortitude couldn't hold back the brutal fact that William was against her, like everybody else was against her._

_He caught her as she sank slowly to the floor. Wrapped his arms around her. Kissed her head with such affection she wondered how he could have been shouting moments before._

_"I love you more dearly than anyone, Miss Swann. You are the closest person to me - and even we aren't close. It hurts me to see this."  
"I don't want your pity."  
"I am sorry that he is a pirate. He would have made a decent man for you, if he weren't."  
"He is the __**only **__man - because he __**is **a__ pirate - you don't understand -" she wept, hitting her forehead against his shoulder in agony._

_"You'll heal. And you'll be grateful. There's no place for you out there, you would have spent the rest of your life hating me for helping him."_

_She couldn't stand to touch him as the words fell from his mouth. She flung herself away, stumbling to the door, before she punched him._

_It couldn't end like this._

_Reaching the street she whipped around and lowered her chin to glare him square in the eye.  
Some part of him had to understand. His father's part. Some tiny glint of humanity._

_"Pirate is just a false name for a free man." she clenched her fists and forced herself not to sob, "Jack uses his head, not a sword, not until he has to. He saved you when he didn't need to, and he's saved me from myself - I was so stubborn but he didn't give up on me."_

_William was frozen under her stare, as though she held all the power of the sea and skies in that moment. She felt as though she did. There was nothing but this._

_"Will, he doesn't believe in fighting or killing. He believes in freedom, from this madness. And that's all you really have in this world. A little freedom to recompense the rest."_

_She took a breath, and the spell was broken. He glanced away, and shook his head.  
And then she ran._

Her door resounded with three purposeful knocks.  
"Elizabeth." her father's voice was layered with several suggestions, the serene surface barely winning over, "It's time."

The bobbing heads of bloodthirsty citizens gathered around the gallows, like a standing audience at the Globe back in England. Waiting for their entertainment.  
The harsh hissing multitude of perfectly synchronised snare drums only enhanced the brutal order of it all. She felt cold despite the midday sun.

How, _how _could these people mutually stand aside to witness the murder of a man who was above them all? A man who had kicked himself free of the earth, who had seemed untouchable, a demi-god until now.

His jewelled brown hands were bound, the cloth binding his cut still in place. The hands that could touch without lifting a finger, the gems from all corners of the globe, that told stories of such adventures.

Her father and James stood silent and inhuman as the red-clad guards that surrounded the small square, that stood arranged on the battlements, guns at their sides, ready.

Perhaps ready to shoot her.

A cool injection of reassuring perspective washed through her shattered body, gravitated her, stilled the shaking in her hands and let her breathe.

Because she knew she had nothing to fear any more.  
Either Jack would escape, or she would die with him.

The voice of otherworldly cruelty rang out, with a finality that steeled her heart against everybody in the world except for Captain Jack Sparrow.

Her eyes darted automatically to the only real face, the darkly handsome, ruthlessly roguish face with eyes like burning coals and a small smirk like the conspiracy of lovers.

The executioner slid the noose around his neck.

His pitch black gaze was levelled at her unabashedly. She didn't know why she was still standing there. It was as though he held her in place with the sheer force of his dark, glinting seraph's halos.

The hangman was striding towards the lever that would end them both.  
She flinched, and sprang.

"STOP!" her own voice terrified her - she sounded like the swift wrath of a goddess, like the crashing waves of an explosive storm, "_YOU WILL NOT HURT HIM!"_

For a fractured moment, the whole universe obeyed her. She was charging into the crowd of common criminals with all the authority of an empress.

Her authority overcame them all, because she knew, and they didn't. Law couldn't withstand the supreme rights of their freedom. Humans could not control who lived and died, when the horizon and the ocean breeze was calling them home.

"_This man is free_!" she claimed again, ignoring all but the executioner, unleashing all the force of her passion upon him as Medusa unleashed all the force of her monstrosity. "This man belongs to none of you, and you will not hurt him!"

"Elizabeth."

It was not Jack's voice. It was the Commodore's.  
She froze, and suddenly the polite world had sunk its claws back into that small gathering of people.

He had named her, and she was once again Lizzie - no goddess. No liberator. She was no speaker for the innate and superior forces of the blank spaces on maps. He powers were stripped from her as soon as she had realised them.

The hangman was moving again. Jack was doomed.  
"_No!_" she lunged forwards, too late now, simply floundering.

Until somebody shoved her hard and she stumbled sideways, crying out through the tight lump in her throat. The figure swept past her, moving more quickly than she had ever seen anyone move, barrelling citizens over as though they were made of straw.

She couldn't breathe.


	37. Chapter 36

****Well, devoted fans, whom I have made wait so long for this finale.  
I'm sorry. I didn't want it to end and it's been a real push to finish this, when for me the story had already ended before I even wrote it. I only hope I've done justice to the characters I've come to love and respect so much.

FINAL PLAYLIST:  
**'Will and Elizabeth' from Curse of the Black Pearl.  
'One Day' from At World's End,** which will need to start from** 1:32 minutes in.  
'One Last Shot' and 'He's a Pirate' also from COBP.**

I will miss this story and your enjoyment of it very dearly! It's the best thing I'm ever going to achieve in terms of these films, and this thread.

So farewell! May the wind forever fill your sails, may the horizon be ever open to your hungry eyes. And may you always be free.

All my love, Dorian.

* * *

**36**

_Yo ho, all together  
Hoist the colours high  
Heave-ho, thieves and beggars  
Never shall we die._

* * *

The sturdy body of a female citizen stopped Elizabeth's fall short; she yanked the woman's course clothing in an effort to tug herself upright. Her throat burned and tightened while the corset squeezed her lungs short of breath, though not as tightly as the last time.

"Elizabeth!" her father was shouting, amidst two sets of echoing footfalls that scrambled and clattered over one another in urgency.

But she scarcely noticed them, still clinging to the plebian woman in a state of transfixed horror and hope, her eyes riveted upon one spot, one man – the feathered hat and rippling cloak – who was still cutting through the crowds at a stunning pace towards the gallows.

The executioner had his hand on the lever, but the man was faster still. There was a metallic shimmering sound, and a sword flashed through the air like a white column of fire, leapt from his hand like an arrow.

Elizabeth shrieked incoherently, for Jack was falling, Jack was doomed –

And then, quite suddenly, he wasn't.

The Governor and James' hands fell away from her shoulders almost as soon as they had hold of her, both staggered into immobility.  
She took the chance and sprang forwards, towards the somehow airborne figure, balanced halfway between life and death.

As she sliced people aside in pursuit of the cloaked man, it all became clear, and her heart burst in a sudden glory of heat and relief.

'**Will and Elizabeth'.**

Jack scowled at her broad smile as he swayed upon the embedded sword, his tied hands doing him no help, his feet precariously placed.

"Don't just stand there!" he managed to bark out.  
Now that there was no turning back, he had apparently traded his concern about her for encouragement of her piratical spirit.  
Or was it just that he wanted to survive?

She threw herself after William who was climbing the wooden steps – narrowly evading the axe of the frenzied executioner – not knowing how to defend herself or what she was about to do, acting on sheer impulse of purpose and survival.

"Get Jack down!" Will yelled, swinging another sword at their opponent.  
He'd come prepared for this.  
A great surge of gratitude and elation gave her the strength to dive onwards, to the square hole where the crown of Jack's head was just visible.

The momentum of her leap sent her ducking just short of the executioner's weapon – she gasped in pure defiance of shock and indignation. A cry from her father below indicated his similar feelings.

But the stroke of the axe was a lucky one – before she could reach Jack the rope was cut – he was falling safely to the ground, with a sword now in his reach.

William was fiercely battling the wretch with flashing, certain swipes of his weapon – the man was teetering on the edge of the platform – Elizabeth barreled forwards, and with a contemptuous yell aimed a kick square at his stomach. He gave a grunt, and soared through the air on his back. There was a sharp shout that she recognised as the Commodore's – the executioner must have landed on top of his gathered soldiers as they were ascending the steps.

A flash of colour caught her eye, atop one of the great flag poles – she looked up – a parrot lifted itself into the sky.  
She was winded with blind joy.  
There was hope. There was hope for Jack.

Now Jack himself appeared, none the worse for wear, clutching the length of rope with his hands freed.

"Where's the sword?!" she yelled, as he beckoned for her to jump down.  
He caught her with strong ease, her body slamming into his for an electrifying moment. "Have _you_ ever tried to extract a sword William has thrown?"

There was no more time for chat. Soldiers everywhere were dashing towards them from the battlements, the Commodore's men slowly recovering from being flattened.

"Will!" the Captain cried, tossing one end of the rope in a wide arc to their partner.

Waves of men came at them in red coats from one side. Elizabeth ran at Jack's side with one hand on his arm, trusting him, only knowing that safety was directly beside him. Clasping the rope firmly Jack upended the enemy whole line.

Another, behind them. They stood no chance against Will and Jack's momentum.

The three of them darted away towards – towards anywhere. Away from the soldiers, or at least the thinnest distribution of them.

Another batch of them were roped viciously around a stone pillar – Elizabeth aimed a deadly upper cut at one and a square kick at another.  
Jack glanced at her with a grin. "Easy, darlin'! We don't want ter be charged with murder!"  
"You're in trouble enough!" she quipped back.

The rope was out of their hands now – it was down to solid fist fighting. More and more red coats flocked around them. They swung and thrusted, but were inevitably forced to duck behind the only remaining pillar – and emerged out onto the same treacherous battlement that Elizabeth had fallen from so long and not long ago.

The game was up.  
A thicket of bayonets and swords bristled around them. Will stood with his back pressed to Jack's, holding his weapon aloft threateningly; Elizabeth flung herself in front of the pirate too, protecting his torso with her own, her shoulder blades against his warm chest. The mad thrumming of his heart resounded through her body.

'**One Day', 1:32.**

Unconsciously, his hands half circled her waist, as though ready to maneuver her aside at the first sign of attack.  
She was both thrilled and lulled to the core at that one touch.  
This was it. This was the sum of life. There was nothing beyond this, this definition of life itself.

Just herself and Jack, their friends, their _side _against the other side.  
They waited.

"Elizabeth!" her father and James puffed into view, their faces locked in expressions of wide horror. "For goodness' sake, lower your weapons!"  
"She's a _danger_, Governor!" cried one soldier with a puffy eye, "She can't be trusted! No offence meant, Sir."

She was being scrutinised by every present male – she was _surrounded_ by arbitrating men.  
An official threat. A female terror. A disgrace.

Good.  
She tore off her ridiculous hat. It had come loose in the brawl anyway. Some of her hair let itself down in longer flowing curls, grazing her neck and reminding her of a sun-stricken beach, yellow and wild, smelling of rum and the salty surf.

Jack's fingers squeezed her waist in approval, swelling her defiant pride. Only his opinion mattered now.

"Mister Turner." James addressed Will curtly, trying to put off Elizabeth's damnation a little longer. She glimpsed the pain that she caused, and remembered that she was his fiancée. The empty space beside him where she should legally be standing gaped at her.

He did not look at her. "I thought we might have to endure some manner of ill-conceived escape attempt. But not from you."  
"After all I have done for you!" the Governor chimed in, "You throw in your lot with him? And allow my daughter to do the same? He's a pirate!"

"Yes, he is." Will's voice did not even tremble. "He is an unprincipled criminal, for the most part."  
"Then what in God's name are you doing?"

Elizabeth had turned her head to stare at her friend, despite her protective stance before Jack. His figure was tall and rigid with determined purpose.

"I'm fighting for something that's worth fighting for."  
"And what is that?"  
"Your daughter's soul."

A holy kind of quiet dipped upon the whole congregation. Elizabeth felt all eyes veer upon her.

"Would you care to explain yourself?" James asked in a low, edged voice. Now his eyes rushed to her, and scored her flesh with their intensity.

"Governor Swann, I _know_ your daughter." Will continued, as though James had never spoken. "I have played and grown with her, I have been her confidant. And even I have been shunned from the truth she didn't dare to tell me. I understand the things she fears and I know her limits, and her sense of _truth_, and her spirit."

Elizabeth realised that the first tear was on her cheek. She fought against the rest.

"Governor, did you ever believe that she could do anything but die here? Do you believe she will settle like an ordinary woman, with an ordinary man? Do you think she can withstand it?"

Weatherby Swann had no answer to give – his expression was only half one of shock. The rest of him was struggling for denial, but unable to express it. He found that he couldn't lie.

"This _pirate_ loves your daughter. I witnessed him losing himself to her, I've seen him kill for her protection." Will's tones swelled over the crowd, "He loves her with a purity to match any man. He offers her an escape. From your shackles. He is the only man I would have for her. A man of freedom. A little freedom, to compensate the rest."

**Music Stops.**

"Remember whose _side_ you are on, young man." the Governor warned.  
"I think you make sides too quickly." came the flashing reply, "I think you know whose _side _she is on, and you know she does it for reasons that overcome everything you stand for."

There was no answer to that, either.  
Lizzie's father shook his head soundlessly, and turned to her with a hopeless expression.  
"Is this what you really want? Elizabeth?"

"It's the _only_ thing for me. I wouldn't be anything if I weren't here, between you and him."  
"And I wouldn't be anything, now, if I ceased to belong to 'er."

She looked up at Jack, startled. His eyes were fixed on James and her father, stormy with fierce sincerity.

'**One Last Shot'.**

"Elizabeth?" James' tone cut through her in its innocent grief. "This is where your affections lie? Truly?"  
"I'm sorry."  
"You choose him over me?"  
"I tried to tell you." she stood irresolutely against him, with sympathetic honesty, "I'm not the fine woman you want to marry, I wasn't made for it. You wouldn't listen."

He steadied himself, and seemed to swallow his sadness. It was logic, and he accepted logic.  
"I wasn't to know."  
"No. You weren't. But here I am, and I'm sorry." she repeated, "I can't expect forgiveness or mercy, but there's nothing else. You understand."

He and Jack exchanged brief looks. James nodded, slowly, thoughtfully.

"I cannot implore you?" her father broke in again, "I cannot convince you to stay?"  
She shook her head, and the freedom seemed to burst from her in a wide, pure, involuntary smile. She shone.  
"Be happy for me," she only said, "Father. I've made my choice."  
There were no more words to explain herself. She was liberated, she belonged, she was her true self.  
She didn't have to say it.

"Well…" her father looked about at the soldiers, at the Commodore, at Will. "What happens now?"

Jack stiffened, and suddenly grabbed her arm.  
The parrot – he had seen it, as it flashed away over the battlements. She just caught its wing.  
It was time.

"I have to say," Jack grinned in his ridiculous, charming manner as he strode flamboyantly out into the crowd, giving Elizabeth the discretion to move freely. "I'm actually feeling rather good about this. I think we've all arrived at a very unusual and… special place, eh?"

They motioned as one body, towards the same spot – as though fate drew them there, to their beginning place, their starting point. As though it reached out to offer them a new beginning now.

All they had to do was let go, to give over to the urge, and jump.

"Commodore! I 'ope this hasn't left bitterness between us. Good luck finding a lawful woman!"  
"Jack!" she jabbed him in the side.  
"William!..." he struggled, then settled for "Nice hat."  
Will looked vaguely pleased.

"Governor! I will love this spirited lady until the day I perish. That I promise ye. She'll be as safe as if she were kept in your cosy manor for the rest of her days."  
"What are you doing?" her father interjected, stepping forward. The crowd were beginning to wise up.

"Jack." she urged, shrugging her light overcoat off.  
The company gasped as one, as she swiftly tore the laces from her corset, and sent it fluttering to the ground.  
She had waited to do that for a long time.

"Friends!" he clasped his hands together gleefully, now speeding backwards, "This is the day that you will always remember as the day that you –"  
And tripped.

She peered down over the precipice where he now plummeted.

The soldiers were closing in on her.  
She jumped up onto the ledge, making them freeze in their tracks, and laughed aloud for sheer hearty rebellious liberated joy.

"This is the day that you will always remember!" she cried, with a voice that rose above everything, that laughed at each of them individually, and caressed them fondly as things below her. "As the day that you _almost _caught Captain Jack Sparrow – _and Elizabeth Swann_!"

Then she was sailing, sailing through air, flying through her vivacity, and she was screaming and laughing, and this was life. This was life. Finally, she knew it as everybody hoped to know it.  
She belonged to the world again.

She slid into the water feet first, just a gasp of breath held in her, enough to help her kick to the surface.  
He was waiting.

"You bumbling fool!" she yelled with glee, splashing him and laughing aloud, "I had to finish your famous last words for you!"  
"You _finished_ them for me?" he roared in return, delighted.  
"Yes. I tacked a few of my own words onto the end. I hope you don't mind."

He splashed her back, and helped her out of the abominable dress until she was once again in her petticoat, much less encumbered.

"Well, then." he set off at an impressive pace, shouting back over his shoulder, "If ye don't drown before we reach the ship, I can thank ye once we're on board!"  
"You'll be thanking me 'til the day you die, you ungrateful pirate!"  
"Come along! Wouldn't want to get caught now!"

The _Black Pearl_ emerged, dark and wonderful and incandescent, from behind the cliffs. Its black sails picked up the wind with expert practice. Ready to carry them fast and far across the ocean.  
Home.

Her legs were stronger than she'd thought. The water divided for her like a curtain. Like a generous friend.  
She swam after Jack, unable to prevent the grin on her face.  
They had made it.  
They were free.

A rope in the water. Jack's arm around her. More flying, more weightless, thrilling airborne joy. The deck, the ocean dripping from their clothes. It was a swirling excitement of faces and colour. Cheers and hats went up into the air like birds, she was wrapped in a long coat. Gibbs' coat. She was being shaken by the hand, Gibbs' hand.

Then, then. Another hand intercepting. A hand leading her to the helm, to the great wheel, where she stood looking up into his fine face, drinking him in like sunlight. He had his hat back – he was complete again.

He inclined his head to plant a sweet kiss on her lips, tasting of the sea they had just burst from, and everyone and everything else fell away for a moment. It was just the three of them. Jack, Lizzie. And the wide, wide ocean.

"I meant what I promised yer father." his eyes glinted, "Every word, luv."  
She kissed him again, fiercely. He knew she agreed.

"Captain Sparrow." Ana Maria, stalking towards them, another great coat in her hands.  
She smirked with real comradeship at Elizabeth, and then passed the garment over.

Lizzie threw the coat over Jack's shoulders. Her hands lingered on him.  
"The _Black Pearl._ She's yours." she murmured.  
"She's not the only one."

He drew her close, put her between himself and the wheel, and then rested his hands on the spokes with his arms either side of her. She could feel the new raw power surging through him. His fingers caressed the wood with a love beyond human relations – as one would caress one's redemption.

"Let's have our heading." he plucked the compass from his side and held it aloft. "_On deck_, you scabrous dogs! Man the braces! Let down and _haul to run free_!"

"Should I be preparing myself?" Lizzie asked playfully, in the warm cage of his arms, "For more of this commanding attitude – towards me? Captain?"  
"Oh, only when you wants it, luv." his low laughter brushed her ear as one arm wound tightly, suggestively around her waist.

She smiled to herself, biting her lip in anticipation.  
"For now…"

"Yes, for now… Just look at it. It's all waiting for us, impatiently." he stared over her shoulder at the glorious scene, the sails furling and catching the wind, the crew dashing about the deck. The beautiful distant line where the sky befriended the ocean. "Do you have all the things you wanted, 'Lizabeth?"  
"More. Much more."

"Well, then... _Bring me that horizon_."

"Isle de Muerta?"  
"You read my mind, darling. I have an awful lot of gloating and reveling to do."  
"I want my fair share."  
"Pirate."

They both beamed. Another quick, burning kiss. The _Pearl _cut through the waters like a hot black knife.  
The fastest ship in the Caribbean.

His humming tickled her ear, and she recognised the tune with a high, untamed, joyous spirit.  
"_Mm-hmhmhm, hmhmhm_…"

She flashed him a sly grin.  
"_And really bad eggs_…"  
The bonfire danced in their eyes. Their voices joined and were one.

"_Drink up me hearties, yo-ho!_"

'**He's A Pirate'.**

_La Fin_


End file.
